The Bat: Eternal Night
by LJ58
Summary: Batman faces death on a nightly basis, but this time, he has no miraculous escape ready. What happens next when his only hope is to risk the fires of hell itself?
1. Chapter 1

_I do not own Batman, or any DC character used in this parody for my own amusement._

_**The Bat: Eternal Night**_

_**By LJ58**_

He staggered, one hand clamped to his side, as the other slid across a slimy wall that refused to support him as he tried to stand.

He gasped as he felt the pain, trying to shrug it off, and only managing to slide down the slippery wall of the sewer as he coughed up blood, and realized the bullet may have struck a lung.

He had been careless.

No, he had been slow. Sloppy. He was getting old. But the criminals were younger and stronger. More of them every day, too. For every thug he hammered back, for every crime boss he defeated, it seemed five more rose to take their place. _Ten_ more!

For every Joker he finally put down, or every Penguin he forced into retirement, there was a Kondor, a new Bane, or someone with some gimmick, and a desire to prove he was better. The new face of Gotham's criminal elite. The man that would finally destroy the mantle of the Bat.

Destroy _him_!

Year after year, they came out of the dark, and he had beaten them all back. Yet the years were catching up to him. And the darkness was rising once more. Growing confident as the mantle weighed more and more heavily upon his once proud shoulders. Even Robin, Nightwing, and the others couldn't stop this surge of dark despair that was rising to shroud his city once again.

It was as if Gotham knew the Bat was sagging. Waning, and weary. Close to his end. It was if the _Dark_ knew, and was rejoicing as it flexed its shadowy hands, and prepared to claw and tear at everything he had worked to protect. To preserve.

He coughed, and felt a surge of white-hot irony fill his gut as another pain warred for attention just then alongside his searing wound.

Irony.

It began with a bullet. It might well end with one. Just a common thug's common bullet. No super villain with diabolical plans. No doomsday scenario that required wit and preparation to defeat. Just….a….damn…..bullet.

He felt more than he heard the approach of soft steps. Not the gunman. He had left him behind. Battered senseless. Cuffed. Harmless. But he still wasn't going to make it. Just four blocks away, and above his head, the Batmobile waited in cloaked shadows for him. If he reached it, he could have the auto-drive take him home. To his cave. To his darkness, where faithful Alfred still waited for him.

Alfred.

Not this time, old friend, he thought grimly as he moved, and fell on his face, slowly rolling onto his side as he clutched not at his bloody wound, but the raw, new pain that suddenly filled the left side of his chest opposite that sucking wound.

Too many years.

Too much stress.

Too….much….

But he thought of Gotham rather than himself in those final moments.

He thought of the darkness waiting to rejoice, and plunge his beloved city back into an abyss of corruption and decay from which it might never arise again.

He cried out in vain as clumsy fingers fumbled with his utility belt.

Did he dare?

Did he dare use….._that_?

The cost…..

The risks….

Yet, he was dead without it.

He could not end here. Left to rats, or predators to find. A body for the media to display to the world.

Unmasked.

His friends exposed.

Endangered.

His city…..lost.

He fumbled briefly after he coughed again, feeling a chilling grasp now as he realized death was stalking ever closer.

He could feel it.

He had been too close too many times not to know its steady gait.

He lifted a small, black capsule, staring at it in hope. In disgust.

Then a shadow fell over him that wasn't some gray specter, or fevered phantasm.

A gleam of moonlight filtering in from the skyline overhead reflected off cold steel, and he looked up to see the gun pointed down at him.

"Well, well, well. Looks like I'll be the big man in Gotham tomorrow," the battered thug sneered as he cocked the hammer of his weapon aimed unerringly at his cowl. The thug ignored the small, black capsule he pushed between thin, pale lips.

"Ain't no stim gonna help you, Bats," the man laughed mocking as the sound of manmade thunder filled the subway tunnels even as he bit down on the capsule that was both salvation and damnation as one.

He barely felt the heated lead tear into his brain, and explode out of his skull as the man laughed manically.

_*******_

"My word," Alfred gasped as the Batmobile slid to a halt on the platform in the usual place, and a bloody, battered figure all but crawled out of the cockpit as he turned to see his charge drop to all fours before him.

"Master Bruce….."

"Stay back," a rough growl warned him, one hand raised as if to ward him off, or to strike out. "Stay back, Al….Alfred," the Batman's voice emanated from those torn, red lips.

Dark, gravelly, and filled with danger, that voice made more than one criminal shudder in his time.

Never had Alfred expected to hear it turned against him.

"Master Bruce," he asked uneasily. "What….?"

"Had to…..use…_it_," he rasped, and managed to push to his knees. "Had to…… Alfred," the Batman looked up with a torn, bloody cowl exposing half his face, and his glittering red eyes. "I need……_blood_."

"Dear God," Alfred gasped, and turned to run as fast as his ancient limbs would allow toward the medical center in the cave.

"How bad was it," Alfred asked him twenty minutes later as a naked Bruce Wayne sat with a towel around his hips, sipping a straw pushed into a sealed blood packet.

"Bad," Bruce murmured. "I was ambushed in the subway by Croc. I barely managed to get away," he admitted. "Fractured ribs, and a possible concussion. That devil seems to just get stronger with age. Like a real crocodile. I got away. Then I ran into some of his enforcers. I put down three, but missed one. I missed one, and he shot me," he admitted, looking down at his smooth, muscular torso that no longer had a mark on it.

He paused to drain the last of the blood from the fifth packet he had emptied since he managed to make it back to the cave. Back to safety.

"He hit the lung. I took him out, but…..it was bad. I was dying, Alfred."

Alfred said nothing as he took the empty plastic packets, and disposed of them in the medical waste.

"I thought I could get back. I still didn't think it was that bad. I was wrong."

"So you…..used it?"

"Not then. I was close….to the car….when another thug came after me. I was sloppy. He got loose, and tracked me. Me. I….used it just as he shot me a second time. In the head," he said, touching his still handsome features just below his temple. Just about where the torn cowl had been ripped apart.

Alfred said nothing.

Bruce looked up with dark blue eyes more like his own now, and growled. "All I could think of was…..they would win. And the city would die. My crusade…..it's all I've ever known since…..since that night. I couldn't let them win, Alfred. I couldn't let our friends be endangered by ending there. Like that. I'd have been….a trophy. The _Dark's_ trophy," he growled, showing very sharp incisors yet to fully retract.

"I understand, sir," Alfred said quietly.

"I know…. I like to prepare for anything. But….even I never really thought I would use it. Still…."

"I do understand, Master Bruce. But you understand there are going to be….complications now. For one, will you be able to go out in daylight any longer? And what about….your needs? We'll need to arrange a great deal of blood. More than usual. Unless you intend……?"

"No," Bruce rose, his fists clenched. "Never! Even when I felt the venom fill me, and my mind and body clear and focus on that….vermin. I did not kill him. Did not _drain_ him. I rose, and I beat him. And left him for the police. He will give Gotham's black heart another dose of fear," he smiled darkly. "The story of a Bat that does not die. Does not yield. And tomorrow night…..I will drag Killer Croc back to his cell. If I have to rip out all his teeth first," he growled.

"Very good, sir. Then I had best prepare your spare costume, and clean up the car. Also, I'll see about arranging more blood for the week, at least."

"I'll talk to Lucius," Bruce said, calming as he stood before his old friend. "Now would be a very good time to test the efficacy of that synthetic blood replacement Wayne-Tech has been developing for field use in emergencies."

"I concur, sir. I take it you will be….resting here below until you are certain _your_ formula has bested the UV weakness in its donor's system?"

"Yes," he agreed. "For now, tell everyone Bruce Wayne decided to take a sudden anonymous vacation abroad until we know if my UV solution did work. Send one of my jets someplace, and tell the pilot to keep his mouth shut."

"At once, sir. I'll just get to work, and leave you to rest," he said as he walked out of the very advanced and well stocked medical clinic in the Batcave.

"Alfred."

The old man looked back at him.

"Thank you, Alfred. For being here."

"Always, Master Bruce," he nodded formally as ever, and closed the door after him.

Bruce dozed off soon after, and knew nothing but dark, dreamless sleep for most of the day. He woke abruptly an hour before nightfall. Despite being in a cave deep underground, his sense of awareness was such that he knew the exact time, the location of the sun, and the presence of every bat in his vast, underground maze of tunnels.

He was also hungry.

Nine years ago, he had faced his most deadly opponent ever to challenge him.

Even Bane could not compare to the legendary vampire master Dracul that came to call Gotham his new home if only for a short time. Faced with a growing army of the undead, and a zombie plague, Batman used all his wits and cunning to find and face the vampire lord that had survived centuries, and managed to bring him down.

Before his death, or apparent death, he managed to get a quantity of his pure, rarified blood. Unlike the viral contagion spread to create that ghouls that served him, Dracul's blood had something else in it. Something that bordered on true magic. While Batman was a logical man, and believed in science and reason, he had seen too much to doubt the existence of the supernatural. He realized that Dracul's blood was a potential panacea, or even a weapon did he ever need either.

He worked on it for years, and finally came up with a diluted, re-engineered sample that should give him the healing ability and strength of the master vampire without the all-consuming hunger, or raw evil of that creature. Or it's elemental weaknesses. Or so he hoped. Still, that sample remained untested. Pulled out over the years only for more testing. More development. More scrutiny as needed.

A failsafe that he hoped never to need, or use, but always carried.

Just in case.

Last night, he had been faced with his very real death.

Not a broken back, or shattered body or mind. Not mere defeat. He had faced death.

He _had_ died.

And incredibly, woke stillborn from that moment of oblivion to roar his defiance in the face of the darkness personified in that thug with a gun.

It had taken all his will not to tear out his throat, and drink of his life's blood, but he had done it. He had made it back home to find Alfred, and help. Now, he was awake. Fully healed. Fully prepared for a new night.

He drew a deep breath, smelling odors and placing things even he had never noticed before now. He heard everything, from the squeaks of the bats overhead in the darkness, to the faint drone of the air ventilation units. He heard furtive movements, and realized he had mice in his cave as well as bats. That explained a few shorts in his electronics of late.

He walked over the medical fridge, and opened it to find it packed with new blood packets.

And four small vials marked XP-403. The experimental synthetic plasma.

He stared at the dark fluid with distaste. His mouth watered all the same as he felt his incisors stretching, growing, and his eyes went to the true blood in those vinyl packages. Even cold and packaged, he sensed that there was life. His life.

Bruce Wayne might play the indulgent playboy, but the Bat was a creature of iron will.

He ignored the packets for a moment, and lifted the first vial of synthetic plasma.

Four full ounces.

He pulled out the stopper, and drank it down.

He felt residual revulsion and grimaced at the copper-iron aftertaste, but a part of him analyzed the liquid, and its aftereffects, and realized that he could not distinguish between it and the blood he had so greedily gulped down the night before. He gulped another tube, then took two packets of genuine blood just in case as he walked out of the clinic and into the cavern itself. He didn't see Alfred, but the night had yet to fall, and he might not be expecting him to be up as yet.

He walked over to the computer that was hooked into the world's most sophisticated communications network without anyone realizing it, and began to scan for reports of his actions on the night before. Croc had robbed another bank late last night. His lackey had been found, arrested, and transported to Arkham. Initial diagnosis appeared to be manic hysteria.

He smirked at that.

He then ran a hand over his smooth torso, and frowned thoughtfully.

He walked over to a lab table, and took a few blood samples, setting them aside for more study as he also took a few tissue, hair, and nail clippings for testing as well.

"Up already, sir," Alfred drawled as he appeared just then, stepping out of the elevator.

"Alfred," he nodded.

"I'm taking a few samples for testing. I want to see just what results we find."

"I left your…ah, refreshments in the clinic storage unit," Alfred told him. "But perhaps you might wish to try to eat something, too? I seem to recall….."

Bruce's eyes met Alfred's.

Dracul had been able to eat like anyone else, too. Another advantage that helped mask his identity as his ghouls could only drink blood. A distinction that made them stand out, and helped hide the master from his enemies for countless generations.

"Later. I drank some of the XP. So far, it seems to be working."

"I trust it will solve that dilemma then, sir. And your other concerns?"

"I've not yet tested my….limits.

"We need to do that before I go out. I cannot risk being caught off guard. Not when the stakes are higher than ever."

"Of course, sir," Alfred nodded. "How should we begin?"

"Garlic? Crosses? Mirrors?"

"Alfred, I didn't know you had a sense of humor," Bruce smiled, feeling more himself.

"I was unaware I did, sir," Alfred assured him.

_*******_

An hour after sunset, Batman was racing toward Gotham after the report of a jewel robbery in the downtown district by a giant lizard.

Killer Croc.

He had stared at himself in a mirror, or two. Felt not the slightest twinge from facing a cross, or even holding it. He even nibbled on a bit of garlic just to test it. His empty belly didn't care for it, but other than that, there was no supernatural reaction.

He then carefully exposed a few of his blood and tissue samples to UV light. There was no reaction.

He then carefully exposed the tip of a single finger to the same bright light that made him instinctively glance away, but only because it was so very, very bright. His skin tingled as if suddenly stabbed by a dozen or so needles, but he felt nothing else beyond that mild discomfort.

"Promising, Alfred," he had told his friend.

"Perhaps the anti-venom base you employed has canceled out the negative affects, sir," Alfred had suggested. "Perhaps a second dose of the pure anti-venom might even….cure you of your other needs?"

"We'll try it if it come to that. For now, I need to get to work. I need Gotham to know the Batman still lives."

He intended to try a workout, to test himself after his miraculous regeneration, but he never got the chance. The report of Croc's rampage came in, and he was on his way. Alfred watched him go, once more clad in his dark costume, several vials of the synthetic blood replacement in his belt, and then he was gone. He knew Alfred was still worried. Probably more worried than usual considering. Still, he felt great. The pain in his chest was gone. The stiffness in his limbs not even a memory. Even his throbbing spine, long a souvenir since that incident with Bane was gone.

He felt…..reborn.

He entered the city and powered down the rockets as he slid through shadows, and back alleys, taking ways he knew best. Croc would have robbed his targets by now, and would be headed back to his lair. Being Croc, he'd stick to tried and true methods. Familiar grounds.

He turned hard and stopped the armored vehicle peopled called his Batmobile just shy of the docks. Right on schedule, four of Croc's lackeys were disappearing down a manhole. Two of them looked up, eyes round with shock as he leapt out of the car.

Croc had already gone.

Too bad. He would not be getting away today.

"You gentlemen picked a bad night to break the law," he growled, and lunged forward, moving faster than he had ever moved even in his prime.

Before their guns were even raised, he was on them, chopping those weapons from their hands, and tearing bags of valuable jewels from their grasp. The men below shouted up at them in confusion as their comrades screamed in pain and fear, and then fell silent as perfectly placed blows drove them into unconsciousness with an ease he had not known in years. He stepped forward, and simply dropped down into the sewer, his eyes adjusting instantly as his heightened senses swept and fleshed out the underground world in a single heartbeat as he put down a third lackey. Then a fourth. He turned to face a fifth. One he remembered from the night before.

He smiled.

Coldly.

"Do you think that will really help you," he asked in a growling voice as faced the man with a machine pistol.

"You're….. You're supposed to be d-dead," the man hissed, squeezing the trigger.

Even as lead hail ricocheted down the sewer tunnel, Batman was moving, leaping up and over the deadly storm as he landed easily behind the henchman, and simply dropped a hard fist atop his head. He went down instantly without even a whimper.

He looked around the three bodies, eyed the bags of loot. The fallen weapons. But no Croc. The mutated enforcer had once more used his men as a distraction to escape. Not this time. He pulled the men back to the street, and placed an anonymous call after he used his remote to send his car back to the usual hiding place in the usual shadows where it wouldn't easily be found. He then left the men tied securely with their ill-gotten gains laying around them, and their now useless weapons left at their feet. Only then did he drop back into the sewer, and go after the real threat.

The sliver of darkness personified still determined to make Gotham a cesspool after all these years. He found him less than thirty minutes later, and watched from concealment as the glorified thug injected himself with some of the black-market venom left over from Bane's earlier rampages. No wonder the man had been harder to beat than usual. Age aside, anyone dosed on Bane's venom became an unstoppable juggernaut that didn't even feel pain. For someone already as tough as he was, Croc must think he was as close to invincible as a genetic mutant could get. Time to prove him wrong.

He dropped down into the water, and stared at Croc who dropped the now emptied needle to gape at him.

"You!"

"Just another junkie, aren't you, Croc," he asked coldly.

"I don't know how you're even walking after last night, but I can finish the job tonight," the mutant smiled mockingly, flashing his sharp, white teeth.

Croc was, Batman knew, a known cannibal. Why they bothered to send him to Arkham was beyond him. He wasn't insane. He just didn't care. He was a stone-cold sociopath. A killer from the womb.

"It's over, Croc. I stopped your men. Now, I'm going to stop you."

"Big words, old man. I made you run away like a scared kid last night. You probably wet your tights," the venom-dozed killer sneered. "I don't know why you risked coming back tonight, but this is it. You're going to die, old man. And I'm going to parade your body all over Gotham. Right before I sell you to the papers. I'll be rich, and famous. The man that killed…."

The soft grunt was torn from him as Batman's fist was planted deep into a gut that was as hard as stone.

Only Batman's hand now had the capacity to shatter stone.

Both men felt bone snap, and tissue yield, and Croc coughed up blood as he staggered back from that single blow, unable to believe how fast, or how hard he had been hit.

"Im….possible," he rasped, staring at the man whose cloak slowly settled back around him as he remained standing where he had stopped.

He slowly sucked air, thick lips pulling back from his sharp teeth, and he lunged at his tormentor with a speed that would have caught any normal man flatfooted. Croc's hands wound around the dark figure who seemed to just suddenly vanished, and he plowed headlong into a brick wall before staggering back again to stare around him at the dark shadows that were everywhere.

"Where are you," he shrieked.

There was no answer.

"Just another junkie," the cold, mocking voice floated overhead.

"I'll tear you apart. _Eat you alive_," Croc screamed.

"Big words for a little man."

"I'll make you _scream_," he raged, shaking his fists at the shadows.

Then fell forward into the murky water as a hard blow suddenly slammed into his left kidney from behind, shattering another rib, and sending him to his knees to cough up blood. Croc railed impotently as he pushed back to his feet, looking around wildly.

"I'm not screaming, freak."

"Not the…..the freak, you…..costumed lunatic," Croc rasped, feeling oddly weak as the surge of venom left him. It had come and gone too fast. The adrenalin was gone, and only fear and weakness remained. Just as the Bat knew it would.

"I think it's time," the mocking voice said.

"Time for what," Killer Croc demanded, still defiant despite the glazed expression of genuine fear in his too bright eyes.

The shadows moved at his left, and a demon stepped out of hell with blazing red eyes, and long sharp talons.

"Time to end it," the Bat snarled, and now Croc screamed as the billowing shadows swallowed him whole.

*******

"Jeez," Bullock rasped, panting from the effort of just running to where they saw the dark shape move at the end of the block.

He and Montoya were just mopping up the rest of the goons they found gift-wrapped for them as usual when they spotted the shadow that rose out of the sewer like a mist. Formless, and yet too real not to be something more than fog. They saw a heavier, darker shape fall from the mist, and ran over to find Croc laying bound at their feet, his mouth torn and bloody. Every tooth in his misshapen maw torn out.

"Good God," Harvey cried, and turned to look for the obvious perpetrator. "There," he pointed, and ran for the end of the block.

By the time they reached the brownstone, the shadow was gone, lost in the dark alleys where it could have gone anywhere.

"Damn…..freak," Harvey panted. "Thought….he was…..slowing down."

Elizabeth Montoya stared around grimly, and frowned.

Bullock didn't say anything, but the last time she had seen mist like that, the Batman had been fighting off an army of vampiric ghouls under the command of a centuries old demon. She remembered, because the demon had raped her. Mentally _and_ physically, and she had almost been one of those ghouls. Until Batman had given her the antidote to the supernatural blight that had almost damned her to a very real hell.

For a moment, she thought she sensed _him_. Her former master. Then he was gone, and she felt nothing. Unless you counted the feeling of abandonment that tormented her for a second time in her life. Even her husband walking out on her had not hurt like the first time she was torn away from the shadows, and lost her dark lord. Her lover. Her master.

That was something she couldn't even tell the department shrinks. How could they understand? Even the old commissioner probably couldn't have understood her. And he had been as much a part of the shadow world as the Bat for more years than she had been alive. She knew the new commissioner couldn't understand. A fresh face out of Central City, all spit and polish. He had been downplaying the Bat's ebbing shadow for weeks now. Pressuring the media to ignore him.

"Didn't know old Bats could still play that rough these days," Bullock drawled as they walked back over to look down at the unconscious mutant. "Guess we better call for another wagon. Big as he is, he won't fit in with the others."

Montoya leaned down, making a show of checking a pulse as her partner spoke. In fact, she was checking his throat.

No bite marks. She was imaging things. Again. Had to be. Because she had been standing there the night the Bat came out of the darkness to strike down her master. To…..

She looked up at a nagging sense of awareness, and just for a second, she saw the fluttering cape of her dark lord as he looked down over the city with an imperious expression.

She blinked, and he was gone.

"Hey, Montoya? You okay, gal," Harvey asked as he lowered his radio. "Not getting spooked again, are you?"

"No. No. Just….shocked that someone could handle Croc like this. I heard he had gotten really strong. Stronger than ever."

"It's that venom crap Bane's handlers let loose on the streets a while back. Seems every kid and his pet monkey is using the stuff lately. Figured Bats would cut if off, but the supply keeps coming back. Guess he's not what he used to be. Guess even the freaks get old," he chuckled softly, his ample belly shaking as he tried not to think of the four days _he_ had left until mandatory retirement.

Four days on the job. Then….nothing.

Even Gordon kept campaigning. Going into private security until he got himself killed cleaning out the last of the Penguin's birdie buddies. Rumors claimed he had been working with the Bat all along on that one, though no one saw a cape during that particular time. Harvey wondered just what he would do, as he didn't have a lot of options in front of him.

"Wonder if vigilantes have to retire same as cops," he muttered as another wagon appeared with reinforcements in case Croc revived while they were loading him up.

"I suppose they must, or all those guys from before our time would still be running around."

"Yeah," Bullock muttered. "I didn't think of that. I remember hearing about some fruit that used to dress up like a ghost. Can you believe that?"

"The Gray Ghost?"

"No, no. Not the movie guy. The detective. Spectre, I think he called himself. Never did hear what happened to him. He just disappeared one day."

They watched as the night shift took their prisoners, and they returned to their car. "Say, how about a pizza before we head back to report how we had Gotham's most wanted dumped in our laps again? Kind of like our own private party before I have to face the pocket-watch parade," he grinned.

Montoya looked at her partner, and shook her head.

"You just finished two subs on our way over here."

"Yeah, well, I'm hungry again."

"You're incredible, Harvey," she smiled as the Hispanic detective climbed behind the wheel.

He was still officially a city detective, but he had lost the right to drive over a month ago after the new commissioner came down on him for wrecking his fifth car in as many weeks. The new commissioner was more accountant than cop. Not many liked him. Even the Batsignal was gone. Commissioner Thomas Clarke was a real wonder boy out to bring progress, law and order to the city the old fashioned way. Without vigilantes.

She had to wonder if he had hated the Flash, too, when he was still a cop back in his own city.

Waiting for Bullock to climb into the car, she started the engine, and cleared with dispatch before heading toward their shift break. Everything by the clock for Clarke. He didn't even want them chasing bad guys on their days off, saying it was bad for the city's insurance coverage. He actually slammed two uniforms for chasing down a known rapist they spotted while technically on a logged break.

What a moron.

*******

He stared down at the car as it drove away.

Mystified.

For a moment, he felt something…..different. He had felt a presence beyond himself.

He had actually pulled Croc, big and heavy as he was, up out of the sewer like dragging a puppy after him. He had spotted the detectives, and wanted to slip away before they spotted him in case his fangs had yet to fully recede, and just that easily he had become an insubstantial mist that floated off into darker shadows, leaving his captive behind.

He heard their hard steps, and heavy breathing as he rematerialized in the alley, and leapt upwards instinctively, rising almost twenty feet before his hands gripped a window ledge, and effortlessly propelled himself up another thirty feet to clear the roof in seconds. Without ever using a grapple or zip line. He shrank back into the shadows on the roof, still feeling another presence, and realized it was Montoya.

Somehow, her conscious _mind_ was touching his. Somehow, she knew exactly where he was just then. He looked down, and found her staring right up at him. He felt the strength of the connection. The sheer animal hunger of her own need, and was momentarily shocked at the dark passion locked inside the dedicated officer.

Not simple desire. Or even the murderous bloodlust of the vampire bride she had almost become. It was….more. A need to belong.

A willingness to belong.

A…._hunger_.

He pulled back into the darker shadows, turning to bury himself in the deeper darkness of night that now fell over the city, and watched as the police came for Croc. He heard their surprised murmurs. Their shocked exclamations. He watched them leave, feeling their relief that nothing leapt out to confront them while they were in such an obviously dangerous part of town that even the police rarely came here unless in force.

Then Montoya was driving off, her mind separate from his own again, but he still felt that brief, urgent touch. The brushing of….essences. And he realized belatedly that part of that hunger had been his own.

He watched the car drive off, and realized that _he_ had wanted her, too.

Craved her.

Turning to stare out over the city from the rooftop, he ruthlessly shook aside such carnal concerns, and touched his equipment he had yet to even require. He began to jog, running faster, and faster, and then leapt out over a yawning hole between the two brownstones. He easily cleared the gap, and kept going.

His thin lips stretched into a feral smile as his honed mind and body returned to the job he knew best.

Patrolling his city.

But Bullock was right. He had to stop the flow of venom. It was time to find the pipeline……and crush it.

"Alfred, Croc's in custody. I'm going to patrol the west side."

"Very good, sir," the dry voice crackled in his left ear in the receiver there. "I've continued to test your samples, and it seems they remain resistant to UV and the other….traditional irritants of your unwitting benefactor. Shall I continue to process more of the synthetic blood, or do you think you still require….?"

"So far, it seems just a matter of taste, Alfred," he told him quietly, breathing evenly as if he weren't racing over rooftops, and spreading his cloak to glide even farther than his newly strengthened limbs could leap. Which was quite a ways. He landed near the top of a gleaming, steel and glass tower on the edge of the downtown district where pimps and pushers ruled the streets at night, and looked down to study his prey.

"All the same, let's keep up some backups," he added. "If I do….lose control, it occurs to me I'm going to be harder to stop than our last supernatural guest with this apparent immunity to boost my defenses."

"Just so, sir. Should I arrnage for help from your…._friends_?"

"Not yet, Alfred. Let's see how far we can go on our own first. I'd rather not involve them until I have to do so."

"Understood, sir.

"Have a nice night, sir."

"You, too, Alfred. Don't wait up," he replied, knowing he would.

He didn't say anything about the incident with Montoya. It was just a surprise. Something unexpected that he could, and would deal with. He'd face it, and go on. Like he always did.

A scream caught his attention. A good place to start his search, he decided, and leapt from the top of the tower without even thinking of his grapple.

_To Be Continued…………_


	2. Chapter 2

_I do not own Batman, or any DC character used in this parody for my own amusement._

_**The Bat: Eternal Night**_

_**By LJ58**_

**Part 2:**

He was watching the police drag the muggers away four nights later when she came.

He knew she was coming, which was unusual, because there was a time when she was as stealthy as he was, coming and going unnoticed without a whisper of sound. Age, he knew, was taking its toll on her if he not only heard her coming, but spotted her even without his visual enhancements built into his new cowl.

Of course, his vampiric vision could also be responsible.

His senses were simply dozens of times keener than ever. He could even smell her presence. Smell her heat. Her musk. Her…..blood. He licked his lips, then tamped down the urges in him that he knew were not normally a part of him. Still, even his normal desires were amplified, too, and he did his best to ignore the uncomfortable swelling in another part of his costumed body as he moved to give her more room to drop down next to him on the roof where he was perched.

"Ooofff," the still statuesque woman grunted as she landed with a grace that belied her years. "That was…..so much easier ten years ago. Even five," she complained.

"Selina," he murmured, his eyes trained on the thugs stuffed into a squad, and driven off by then. Still, he could see them cowered in the back of the cars. One of them having wet himself after he had dropped down on them to stop their abuse of the weary mother of three working two jobs just to support her family.

He knew, because she had babbled everything to the police as they took her report. And he had heard every word.

"I almost….didn't believe it," she smiled from behind her mask. "But this was _you_, so I had to check. Rumors claimed you were out of the game. Practically dead. Yet….you look as good as you did twenty years ago, darling," his on-again, off-again lover sighed. "I'm envious."

"Don't be," he said, turning to her, his crimson gaze hidden by his cowl's optical lenses.

"You still have to tell me your secret."

"I don't think so."

"C'mon, Batman," she smiled, not using his name even now, nine years after he had finally shared his secret with her. Not even when Penguin's goons figured out she had gotten cozy with the Bat, and tried to literally beat it out of her.

By the time he had found her, she had been so bad it took her three months in ICU to recover. But she never said a word. Not then. Not since.

"C'mon, lover," she cooed as if they had never parted. "This old cat wouldn't mind getting a few of her lives back."

"You wouldn't like it," he told her grimly, looking back out over the city. _His_ city.

"Why not?"

"You have to die first."

He heard her soft gasp. Felt her tension even though he wasn't touching her. "Bat….Batman, you didn't," she croaked, proving she did know him, and his secrets.

"No choice. So far, I'm controlling it."

"But…."

"I've also developed a synthetic blood for feeding."

"Oh, God, Bruce," she finally called him by name, touching his shoulder. "But you know the dangers….. We barely stopped those things the last time….."

"If necessary, I'll stop myself," he told her grimly, and she believed him. Which said something of his character.

"Alfred must be going nuts."

"He's not happy.

"But, then……"

"He never is," Selina sighed.

"Indeed."

"So, is Bruce Wayne going to be ducking the sun, and the press now?"

"So far it seems the derivative I distilled allows me tolerate the UV rays with minimal discomfort."

"Coming from you, that's like saying you can run a marathon in spite of a broken leg."

"Selena."

"Or two."

"Go home. Gotham hasn't seen you in three years. There's no reason for anyone to even know Catwoman is even still alive."

"I was just worried, Batman," she murmured, and he could hear the sincerity in her tone. "You've been so driven of late, and when I heard those rumors…."

Selina was still panting from her exertions when once she would have been ready for a knock-down, drag-out, and more. To still be sucking air after resting for ten minutes was kind of embarrassing for her. Then, too, there was still that damn hip that had never been the same after that thug had kicked her half to death, and ensured she would never have kids. Sometimes, she honestly wondered if that wasn't the reason she had never gotten together with Bruce.

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not," she countered.

His nostrils flared, and he turned to look down.

Montoya.

She was pulling up just down the block, looking around. She seemed to show up around him a lot lately. Far too often to be coincidental even if she were a detective. Their link, he realized, was growing stronger. "Go home, Selina. I've got work to do," he said, and because she was there, he pulled out his grapple, and fired a line into the night before swinging off with such speed she couldn't hope to follow. Not in her current shape.

"Oh, Bruce," she murmured, watching his cape flare out as he flung himself into the night.

Below them, a dark-haired woman looked up, her brown eyes wide, and saw the fluttering shadows. Her lips moved slightly, and if anyone had heard her, they might have wondered why she had whispered _that_ particular word as the shadow of the Bat passed her.

*******

"I'm back, Alfred," he said, jumping from the car as the engines cooled after he shut them down, and he pulled his cowl back even as he approached the man computer. Only Alfred wasn't there. He frowned, and looked around. He wasn't anywhere in the cave.

It was late. He might have already retired. He was getting older, and these long nights just didn't agree with his old friend in the least.

He changed, then went upstairs to shower, knowing Bruce Wayne had to make a few calls even if he didn't show up this week. He had barely stepped out of the back of the hidden passage when he saw a shadow that didn't belong slumped across a divan in the private study that led to his real home. He tensed, ready to attack, when he realized he knew the intruder. He went to the woman now dressed in a dark green pantsuit, and gently touched her shoulder, and the sleeping brunette stared up at him with dark green eyes.

"B-Bruce? Oh, God, Bruce. Thank God, you're back. Alfred. He's….."

"Where is he, Selina," he stopped her.

"The hospital. I….I came by to talk, but he was…..he was unconscious _downstairs_," she told him. "I had to bring him back up before I could even call the paramedics."

"Why didn't you call me?"

"I….didn't have the new frequencies," she told him quietly.

He sighed.

"Let me change," he told her. "Then we'll go….."

"Are you sure you'll be okay? I mean….with the sun….?"

"Theoretically, I should be fine. I'll take along a few extra vials of the new blood serum just in case," he nodded. "For Alfred, I'll find out."

She knew he meant it as she followed him out of the study, and watched him go upstairs.

"Would you like me to make you…..?"

"No thanks," he told her. "But you make what you want if you're hungry."

She said nothing as he disappeared upstairs.

*******

"I'm sorry, Bruce," Selina told him as she stood beside him as he stared out the window of the waiting room.

They had gotten to the hospital just in time to watch him die. Alfred had looked up with filmy eyes, and smiled weakly at the pair of them. "Master Bruce," he said quietly and then his eyes closed and he was gone.

Bruce had stood there, wearing mirrored sunglasses, and an overcoat, and stared down at his longtime friend and companion. He was numb. Simply numb. He barely noticed when doctors rushed in to brush them from the room. He was led to the waiting room, and simply stared out in the daylight, as if defying the bright sunshine to do anything about his dark presence. His face tingled and felt strangely tight, but that was all. He was doing what other vampires could not. Standing in the daylight, and defying death.

"He was tired," he murmured, his voice quiet. Almost as low as when he wore his _other_ mask.

"Mr. Wayne," a nurse appeared. "I'm sorry, sir, but…..your friend….."

"We have been expecting it," he cut her off. "I have arrangements made with Gotham Centennial," he said, pulling out a card he handed her. "They know what to do."

"Uh, yes, sir," the woman said, taking the card. "Should I send the bill….?"

"Send it care of Richard Grayson at Wayne-Tech," he told her, and turned to walk away. "He handles all my financial affairs now."

"Bruce," Selina rushed after him as best she could. And ran right into an army of paparazzi.

Bruce paused long enough to put an arm around her, and then bulled through them as easily as a linebacker shook off rookie tackles. He led her to his waiting car he had driven himself, and shot the press a scathing look before he climbed in and drove off.

"Vultures," he growled.

"No arguments," Selina agreed, half of them shouting at her, the other half at him.

"I'm more interested in how they knew I was there so quickly. Someone in the hospital must be selling tips to the media," he said gruffly. "It makes me wonder what else they might be selling."

"Not everything is a conspiracy, Bruce," she said quietly.

He turned and stared at her through his mirrored glasses.

"Someone is selling _venom_ on the streets."

"Oh my God," she gasped. "Are they insane?"

"Croc was using it. He was already unbalanced. That poison unhinged him. But someone is out there spreading that stuff to anyone that wants to buy it, and so far, they're keeping their supply line well hidden."

"Croc? Was on venom?"

"It's how he almost killed me."

"Damn, Bruce," she murmured, looking at him in genuine concern.

"Where should I drop you?"

"I….."

"Selina?"

She sighed.

"I got evicted, Bruce. I don't exactly have a place right now. After that last stint in prison, and the remunerations forced on me by the judge, I don't have anything left."

"Where are you staying?"

"Where it all began," she sighed in a nearly inaudible voice, knowing he would understand.

"That has to be distasteful."

She laughed bitterly.

"You have no idea."

"You could stay with me," he said after going a few miles in relative silence.

"I'm not looking for handouts."

"I'm not offering. I seem to have an opening in the house staff. Irregular hours, but good pay. Think you could handle it?"

"What about fringe benefits," she asked teasingly.

"Selina," he growled.

"Okay, sorry. _Boss_," she smiled her old, familiar smile. "Frankly, it sounds like heaven just now. Just don't expect me call you 'Master Bruce.'"

He gave her a rueful glare before nodding at her.

"Good. We'll go get your things, and then we'll settle you in," he said even as a built-in dash cell rang.

"Wayne," he all but barked when he pressed the talk switch on the wheel of the sports car that probably cost more than Selina had made in the past three years. The only reason he answered was that his in-dash ID already informed him it was the funeral home.

"Yes, that's right. Just as we discussed. Nothing more. Nothing less. When will the funeral take place? I see. Keep me posted."

"The….funeral home? Already?"

"Yes. They have to wait for the state-mandated autopsy in spite of his obvious collapse, but the funeral should be in two days. Alfred and I both agreed no frills, but I'm having him buried in the family plot."

"He'd like that."

"He was family," Bruce murmured.

"Are you going to call Dick, or….?"

"I'll notify the others when everything else is settled. I'm sure the press will have the story spread for us before noon," he spat in disgust.

"You seem to like them even less these days."

"They couldn't report the mayor's overreaching graft in spite of overwhelming evidence, but the minute a celebrity shows up, they have _fifty_ reporters all vying for a comment. What kind of misplaced priorities does that indicate to you?"

"Preaching to choir, Bruce," she told him quietly. "Remember?"

He glanced at her again as he turned toward the part of town not many honest citizens cared to visit, or even acknowledge. That she had been reduced to living back where she had once been forced to sell herself just for enough to stay alive had to be galling. He knew how he would feel.

"Do I need to settle at the desk for you," he asked as he pulled into a motel that was not strictly a typical motel.

"No. My rent runs out at four today, so……this is good timing."

"You should have come sooner," he said, eyeing the place that seemed even seedier in daytime than at night when he patrolled this area in another car.

Which was saying something.

"You know how it is. A girl has to have some pride, Bruce," she smiled. "I won't be long. I…..don't have much left. Like I said."

She jumped out of the sports car, looked around, and asked, "You going to be okay waiting?"

His expression made her laugh.

"Sorry. I actually forgot who I was really talking to for a moment."

He gave a faint smile, and gestured for her to go.

She was rusty, he realized as he casually got out of the car. She hadn't even noticed the two thugs lounging to one side of a dumpster, pointedly eyeing her door.

"Looking for something, boys," he drawled as he climbed out of his car, and sauntered over to stop them from following her. She blithely walked into the apartment without looking back.

"Look, buddy. You don't want none of this, see," the man with the broken front teeth told him, sucking the jagged edges in a manner that suggested he enjoyed the pain he must be feeling.

"That's right. Boss just wants a chat with the lady. That's all."

"What boss," he asked. "My friend didn't say she had another job when I hired her," Bruce drawled innocently as he strolled over to stand in front of them.

"Hired, he says," the other, a shorter, stockier man with thinning hair smirked. "That what they calling it these days?"

Bruce sighed, and eyed the dumpster.

He didn't have time for this.

He took a discreet glance around the lot, saw no one else, which was suspicious in itself, and chose to act. Before either man could comment or make a move, he had stuffed them into the half full dumpster, and pulled the latches to lock the covers in place. He just returned to lounge against the side of the car when Selina walked out of the room carrying two large suitcases, and nothing more.

"All done," she said, frowning as she heard a muffled curse from the dumpster.

"Trouble?"

"Not at all," he smiled as he opened the trunk for her and put the luggage inside. "This is it?"

"Remuneration, Bruce. They took it all. But I'll bet the damn judge kept at least half of it for himself, too. The bastard."

"I'll look into that for you if you like."

"Hey, I never took anything from anyone that didn't deserve a little gouging. You know that," she told him as she climbed into the car. The roar of the engine drowned out the sound of the men hammering on the nearby dumpster.

"So, Bruno and Frank?"

"Who?"

"The two thugs you dropped in the trash, Bruce," she smiled. "You weren't _that_ quick."

"They seemed determined to keep you around. Something I should know about?"

"I was….counseling some runaways, suggesting that they really didn't want to be there. That even a bad home was better than no home. Parkes didn't like the fact I sent three of his newest fillies home with my advice."

"Hmmmmm."

"He also didn't like the fact I wouldn't…..rent my room with my favors."

"He must be new."

"From Chicago. He still thinks women are meat he can use and abuse at his leisure. I was half considering introducing him to Ivy."

"He's that bad?"

"He's worse. He put a girl in the hospital for refusing to put out for him. She was twelve."

The look on Bruce's face was telling.

"Maybe I need to visit this Parkes."

"I wouldn't mind," she told him. "If I was still young....."

"I'll pencil it in," he said. "If he's from out of town, he might also know about the source of venom in town."

"That could be Ivy again."

"Even Ivy won't touch that stuff," he told her.

"You sure?"

"We reached an accord a few months ago."

"Really? Ivy? Compromised with you?"

"She had a few hard truths of her own to face at the time," he pointed out as they drove away, leaving the squalor of the East Side behind them for the time being. She didn't press him on details. Even as a friend, former lover and confidant, she knew Bruce held secrets the way the Ft. Knox once hoarded gold.

*******

"Bruce," Dick's voice sounded from the answering machine. "I just heard. I won't ask if you're okay, but if you need anything….."

Selina wasn't surprised when Bruce deleted the single message from an associate among the forty-seven calls all from different media outlets all wanting to know about his dead butler, his apparent new companion who was a known ex-felon , and what did he think on any of several hot topics of the day.

The last call froze his finger over the delete button.

"Hello, Detective," a raspy, ageless voice drawled. "I just happened to be in town, and heard of your….remarkable regeneration. I am looking forward to seeing you again. Soon. It sounds like we have _much_ to discuss."

"Ra's," they both hissed even as a knock sounded on the door.

Ra's al Ghul was a madman they had both faced at different times. It was never good when he popped up. Bruce gave a telling expression, and she went toward the fireplace, eyeing the pokers as he answered the door. They both gaped as a Latino woman now in casual jeans and a rumpled sweatshirt stared up at him.

"Mr…..Wayne? I….. I didn't know….."

"Detective Montoya," he frowned. "Can I help you…..?"

"_Master_," she cried, and flung her arms around his ankles as she fell to her knees and prostrated herself before him. Which she had done the moment she looked into his eyes.

"This one I _have_ to hear," Selina smiled sardonically as Bruce gaped in genuine bewilderment as the officer, looking haggard and worn out, clung to him while weeping on his feet.

"Get up, Montoya," he told her firmly, and she rose instantly, looking at him with bright, almost feverish eyes.

"I think I understand," he murmured.

"Understand what? That you have a crazed cop following you around throwing herself at your……"

"Selina."

"Sorry, Bru….

"Mr. Wayne," she told him firmly. "Should I, uhm, make tea, or something?"

"I think coffee would be more appropriate. I'll try to….straighten out the detective in the meanwhile," he said, a quick glance noticing her squad looked as if it had been lived in lately as he spotted it before closing the door on the overly bright day.

"Follow me, detective," he told her, and Elizabeth Montoya smiled and nodded as she followed him without hesitation.

*******

Batman stood on the top of the building overlooking Ivy's private compound.

A rolling, green estate that looked more like a self-contained jungle than a city estate. Four years ago, Ivy was literally dying. Her own innate toxins finally rebelling, and eating away at her own body. He had saved her. It galled her. It also left her feeling oddly grateful to a man. Something Pamela Ivy never would have admitted to anyone else in the world.

Except him.

He arranged for her to go to work for Wayne-Tech under a new ecological branch that was studying environmental impacts on the world from everything from man's own industry to the commonplace natural cycles that some scientists claimed accounted for Global Warming. She accepted, and had been turning out quite a few miracle cures in her own right since. As well as filling Wayne-Tech with reams of valuable data.

Research was Ivy's first love, and she returned to it with a vengeance when given a chance. She just still preferred to remain alone.

He leapt out to glide over the wall, landing easily on his feet as he walked fearlessly through the potentially lethal jungle. Not that Ivy killed now. But she remained defensive. She still favored her plants and nature over men's company, and having learned she was ironically sterile because of her genetic mutation, he could understand how that might have been a final blow against her men in her eyes. For there were a lot of men that still viewed women as valueless if they were less than perfect.

"I have been expecting you," a soft, sultry voice cooed as a green shadow moved out of the jungle as he approached the small, but well stocked lab in the center of the grounds.

"Really," he asked gruffly, stopping to eye the still stunningly beautiful redhead who did not seem to age since the say he cured the physiological imbalance that had been killing her.

"I've been hearing whispers on the night air," she told him, walking fearlessly up to the one man in her life that did not cow at her touch. Or abuse her favor and trust.

"I'm looking for answers myself. I know you….hear things. Someone is selling _venom_ on the streets," he told her. "My best efforts have yet to find the pipeline. Even the pushers can only tell me where the suppliers were. Not where they'll be, or who they are."

"And you thought of me since my early research created the first venom?"

"We both know you still hear things," he repeated.

"So I do. I don't know who, or why, though, Batman," she smiled, her red lips glistening in the moonlight, but not because of her lipstick.

They reminded him of blood, but he remained grimly untouched, and tried not to think of other lips tinged with blood.

He remembered the woman that came to his home passing out from exhaustion, and something more. Something he didn't not care to think about at the time. He settled Selina in, and had Montoya put in a guest room to recover until he could deal with her. He then went below, checking a few things he had been tracking before going up to find Montoya had disappeared from her room. He had found Montoya naked, and stretched out on his bed, her eyes feverishly bright, locked on his as he had entered the room.

"Why are you here?"

"I belong here," she had told him. "I belong to _you_, master."

He couldn't help but look when her lean, muscular legs parted, and he smelled not only the ripeness of her musk, her desire, but the copper taste of blood that hung in the air. She was bleeding. Her woman's time. Bruce found himself stunned for half a second.

In the other half, he reacted instinctively, and closed the gap between them, burying his face between her thighs to lap hungrily at her blood and musk, devouring both in a frenzied eagerness as Montoya howled her delight, and drove her dark mons into his face while using her legs to embrace, and hold him as they joined in a far more intimate fashion that mere sex allowed. That first taste enthralled both of them, and belatedly Bruce realized it bound the young woman to him as surely as she was once bound to Dracul. A part of him recoiled at the notion. Another part crowed and celebrated the taking of this young, ripe consort to tend his needs.

His probing tongue having cleaned her inside and out of every drop of thick, rich blood, he rose over her, then drove his rampant shaft into her with cruel force, but the young officer accepted it, and every stroke with shudders of delight as she bucked and writhed beneath him, her body embracing him as if it were a glove, trying to enfold him in her warmth. They spent most of the afternoon rutting like mindless beasts, and while he had not bitten her, able to resist that final compulsion, he had put chains around the woman simply by tasting her blood, and putting his semen in her. They both knew she would never be free again so long as one of them lived.

Montoya was now his consort. She required only a bite to become his true bride. He never learned why Dracul always had three. He suspected it had some purpose, but he didn't think on that. He used his new, intensified authority over Montoya to send her back to her job, telling her she would be serving him by keeping an eye on the police, and letting him know what they learned, or planned while continuing to act like her _normal_ self to deflect suspicions. She had been an eager accomplice as she swore to serve him, and swore she would never fail him as she left, Selina eyeing them both a bit enviously.

Then he went out for the night. To find Ivy after three trails turned cold on him.

"But this I do know," Ivy went on as if not noticing his lapse into somber memories. "The demon's head is back in town," Ivy told him. "We both know that cannot be a coincidence."

Batman nodded.

"I heard from him this morning. I hoped it was a coincidence. Still....."

"We both know there are no coincidences in _this_ life," the redhead pointed out.

He said nothing to that.

"Now, let me ask you something, Batman," she smiled, putting a hand daringly on his chest. "Is it true what I've heard?"

"And what is that?"

"That the Bat has conquered death. That he died, and rose again, and tore Croc into pieces with his bare hands."

"Croc isn't dead," he stated grimly. "But I did pull out all his teeth."

"Ouch," the woman flinched, and let her hand slide up to his shoulder, as if she might embrace him.

"It was better than killing him," Batman told her quietly. Firmly.

"And the phoenix tales?"

"Life is change, Pamela," he told her somberly as he eyed her lush curves, and found it strange that he saw nothing in her to draw him. No lure. No passion. Nothing at all.

Not even her blood seemed to appeal to that other side of him that had been created when he took that dark pill holding a darker bane.

"Clever Bat," Ivy cooed, her hand sliding from him. "You never give anything away. You know what I think?"

"What would that be?"

"That _you've_ changed. But as I when I first woke, you fear that change. You fight it. You resist it. Only when you revel in it, and strangle it by embracing it so tightly it can never elude you will you truly master it. I learned that from you, my cloaked friend," Ivy smiled.

Batman studied her for a moment, and read the disappointment that radiated from her. He was one of the few not afraid of her, and the only one she respected.

"If I embrace my change, Pamela, it could damn this city."

"Or the world? I once felt the same, too. And I spent years lamenting it even as it drove me insane, and almost killed me. Whatever happened, it's part of nature, Batman," she told him, daring to touch his chest. "And as it is natural, it must be accepted."

"I don't think….."

"If it happened in this world, then it was of nature, and natural. You may not think so, but most people did not think I was very natural either. Did they? I was a freak to be feared and pitied. Locked away while I grew madder and badder, and closer to death. But you saw through that. You restored my natural balance, Batman," she murmured, and leaned close to kiss the side of his cheek. "Why can you not see the same answers you once gave me now apply to you."

Batman remained unmoved.

"I shall consider your words, Pamela," he nodded. "But for now, Ra's must be dealt with. Especially if he is the source of venom in Gotham."

"Plants are more than ornaments, Bruce," she whispered. "I have taught you that much," Ivy chuckled huskily as she reached out to embrace a vine running nearby through the brush.

He didn't react to her use of his name.

"They are as sentient, and aware as any mammal. And more intelligent, I still believe. They whisper of many things. While I know nothing of certainty, of late, they have whispered of dark shapes bearing bitter poisons to shadowed places."

"Ninja," Batman murmured.

"Perhaps…..Ra's' League?"

"Thank you, Ivy. I shall see you later."

"Be careful, Batman," she told him as he turned. "Like you, Ra's is a thing undying, and full of shadows. When shadows merge, it might be hard to tell where one begins, and the other ends."

He leapt up into the canopy of her forest, and easily moved toward the wall. It was like Pamela to be so cryptic at times these days. She was caught up in the mystic side of her new elemental status after she purged the hatred of life from her heart and mind. She had been so caught up in the desire to overwhelm fauna, that she overlooked it was part of the cycle of life on the planet she wanted to purify in favor of her flora.

Still. _He_ was a part of the natural world? A hybrid vampire? A predator that preyed on life to continue unnatural life beyond death? Even he had trouble with that one. It was part of why he destroyed Dracul.

Ra's, however, was a threat that had to be contained, even if he wasn't behind the venom. And if he was, then it was obviously just a smaller piece of a grander plan. Ra's al Ghul never did anything that was small. If you stumbled over one of his puzzle pieces, it invariably led to a larger picture. A much larger, and more complex picture that would end only in death and destruction if not thwarted. He would not let the long-lived madman use Gotham as part of his scenario. Not again. Not ever.

*******

Ra's sipped wine from a silvered goblet, and smiled into the flames in the hearth before him.

"Soon, Ubu," he told the silent giant behind him. "Soon, my new army of chaos shall be ready, and when they are, I shall unleash a…… Ah, Detective," Ra's turned to see the shadow that moved where none should be was real.

As he had expected.

"I don't suppose poor Ubu has any more chance with you than the usual human flotsam you face of late."

"No," he murmured, his lips barely parting.

The bald giant in black garb stared at Batman who stepped out of the shadows to fill the room itself with shadow with his mere presence.

"I am curious. I know you did not use a Lazarus Pit. I know Wayne-Tech has yet to patent any new miracles vetted by your more colorfully clad friends. So, tell me, how did you manage to cheat death this time? If I might ask?"

"Cheat, Ra's," Batman asked coolly. "Who said I did? Maybe I am dead, and simply refuse to yield to that final embrace."

"Nonsense," Ra's snorted as Ubu frowned at him. "We both know you are a man of science and reason. What you describe is nothing less than…."

Batman seemed to vanish. Reappearing directly beside him in the blink of an eye.

"Superstition and folklore," Batman suggested, whispering in his ear before he reappeared back in his original place.

Even Ra's was a little confused and unsettled by that sudden motion.

"I admit, Detective, that some of your….theatrics are amusing, but…..I get the feeling we are now well beyond the usual illusions. Aren't we?"

"I'm not here to amuse you, Ra's. I'm here to ask you a single question."

"Oh?"

"Do you stop the venom. Or do I stop you?"

"Really, Detective," Ra's laughed. "Even if you managed to foil me this time, I will always win because I will simply outlive you. Eventually, you will grow old and feeble, and then…."

"You think you'll outlast me?

"Even if I have discovered the secret of the pits? Even if I neutralize them, and render every pit in the world……common mud?"

"You're bluffing."

Batman told him something in a language long dead that both he and Ra's knew. The man had nothing to say as Batman simply stared. Hard.

"Leave Gotham. Forever. End the flow of venom. Or before noon tomorrow, your vaunted immortality, demon, is a thing of the past."

Ra's, for the first time in his long, endless life cycle, knew the cold hand of fear. Ra's stared hard at the unyielding planes of the face not covered by the grim cowl. A cowl that seemed more shadow than mask. As if the very night had come to life, and enfolded him. Making itself one with the grim champion of Justice that haunted the darkness.

"I do believe you really have changed, Detective. Yes, I do. Very well. Vain protestations are not my style any more than they are yours. I shall withdraw."

"Forever," Batman growled.

"Ubu. Prepare the car. We are leaving."

"The venom," Batman murmured, and it wasn't a question.

"The flow to Gotham will end."

"The flow. Period. Will end."

"You ask much."

"I offer much. Or do you wish this to be your last incarnation, Ra's?"

"I forget sometimes that you are as much a businessman as a detective. You would have been formidable had you simply stuck to the former."

Batman's gaze never wavered behind his cowl.

"Very well. I shall end the use of venom. But my plans will continue. In this life, or the next. Even if you blight the Lazarus Pits," he spat, "I will still find a way. I always find a way."

"So do I," Batman murmured blandly, and simply vanished.

Ubu actually shuddered.

"It would seem, my loyal friend, that the detective has literally become a true creature of the night. Fascinating. Even I never expected him to go that far. This could be….interesting. Before you pack, call our friends in Mumbai. Tell them I have a job for them. A very _special_ job."

"Yes, master," the manservant and assassin bowed before leaving the room.

"Check, Wayne," Ra's told the open balcony to his penthouse suite. "But not checkmate. Never checkmate."

_To Be Continued……._


	3. Chapter 3

_I do not own Batman, or any DC character used in this parody for my own amusement._

_**The Bat: Eternal Night**_

_**By LJ58**_

**Part 3:**

"What are you doing?"

"Putting the fear of death into Ra's," Bruce said as he sat before his computer, typing so fast Selina couldn't see his hands moving over the multiple keyboards.

"Is that….Babylonian?"

"Assyrian. Although it's a derived dialect from a much older tongue."

"Of course it is," Selina murmured as she eyed the cold soup and tea left for him that had yet to be touched.

She wondered if this was how Alfred had felt when Bruce threw himself into his work as if untouched by mundane things like hunger or fatigue.

"Bruce, it's almost noon. Don't you need….?"

He turned to stare at her. "Rest," he asked, his lips thin, and almost sardonic in the faint curve he allowed.

"I feel as if I've been asleep _until_ now," he told her. "Don't worry. I took some of the blood serum when I came in. I'm fine. I'll rest once I finish inputting my calculations."

"What are you hoping to do?"

"Neutralize Ra's. I believe he thinks to send his vampire slayers after me, and then move on with his plans, whatever they might be. I'll learn that tonight. In the meantime, I intend to teach him that perfidy does have a price."

"How? You can't kill him. He's…."

"Immortal? Only so long as one of his fanatics drops him in a Lazarus Pit. But…..suppose the pits were suddenly rendered impotent."

"Uhm, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't those part of the planet? Didn't that Swamp creature once tell you that if you tampered with them, you could end all life on the planet?"

"If you destroyed them, yes, you destroy the planet. But I'm not destroying them. I'm altering them. Rendering Ra's alone, incapable of using them any longer."

"By running a program?"

"Once I have the complete alkaline base and current genetic samples downloaded that I took from Ra's last night, I can interject a genetic agent into the nearest pit that will spread through the others, and that blocks him from ever using the pit again."

"Won't that block Talia from using it, too? She being his daughter."

Bruce did not slow his typing. "Yes," he said grimly.

"But…."

"Sacrifices must be made," he growled. "Or that madman may yet destroy the world anyway. I would save her if I could," he turned from the computer only then, "But her father must be stopped. Once, and for all."

"I agree, beloved," a lithe shape came out of the shadows clad in dark scarlet.

"Talia," he murmured as Selina gasped in surprise. "I wondered how long you were going to stand back there in the shadows."

"You knew….? Of course you knew. Father told me….incredible things. Even I did not believe…..that you had become a thing of evil, though."

Bruce said nothing at first, then looked up at Selina from his chair.

"Selina, perhaps you would go make fresh tea for our guest?"

"Sure," Selina murmured blandly.

"Are you hungry? Have you eaten," he asked Talia as Selina stared helplessly at the ageless brunette who was still as vital and beautiful as she had been twenty years ago.

Or a century past.

"I could ask the same of you," Talia smiled, eyeing the untouched tray.

"Selina," he nodded at the brunette. "Perhaps a light snack for the two of us. We'll eat in the dining room after I've changed," he told her as she nodded, and walked toward the elevator, her limp all the more pronounced after a long night without much rest.

Selina said nothing as she left them alone in the cave.

"You…..can go upstairs during the daylight? I thought….?"

"I am not what you think," Bruce told her, and rose after locking the keyboard, and encrypting even the visible data so only he could understand what he was doing.

"Cautious as ever," she smiled as she watched the data morph into swirling nonsense.

"Always," he told her. "If you will wait a moment, I will change and escort your upstairs."

"I heard about Alfred. I am sorry….."

"It was his time," Bruce remarked quietly as he studied her.

"Of course. And Ms. Kyle?"

"She has….fallen upon hard times, and offered to replace him."

"I see. So you intend to make yet another stand and watch helplessly from the sidelines as you fling yourself into danger time and again?"

"Selina is…..different."

"Do you truly think so," she asked, boldly following him to the small corner where he exchanged his costume for Bruce Wayne's custom tailored clothing.

"Don't you?"

"She loves you, too."

Bruce said nothing to that.

"I know she once offered to live with you even if you didn't marry. Yet she suddenly left. Only now….?"

"She's infertile. She thought that mattered."

Talia watched him dress without comment as she replied, "Beloved, that does matter to a woman. She no doubt felt her worth diminished by that lack."

"Do you know why she is infertile?"

"Yes," Talia admitted.

"Then you know it wouldn't have mattered to me. It never did."

"But it does to her."

"Shall we go upstairs?"

She sighed, and took his arm.

"Father is right. You are more maddening than ever. You were a wall before. But you are becoming a fortress. Beloved, some day you may close yourself off from everyone. Then what will you do?"

He had no answer at first.

Then he smiled, and shrugged, "As I've always done. Keep going as best I can."

"Did you truly…..die," Talia finally asked him as they stepped into the private den that was his father's study once upon a time.

Bruce studied her as they walked toward the dining room where lunch awaited, measuring her heartbeat, feeling her emotions, and realized he could potentially warp and control them. Just as Dracul did. Only this woman already loved him. Already desired him. She simply warred within herself over her loyalty to her father, and her longing for him. He could now change that with a thought. But he didn't.

"Yes," he told her, and pointed to his temple. "A bullet right here. After a bullet collapsed a lung, and my heart started to fail. That, after Killer Croc almost beat me to death. Literally."

"Yet you stand here untouched."

"I moved beyond death," he told her without explaining.

"Father knew Dracul."

"I'm not surprised."

"He was the one that manipulated him into targeting Gotham."

"That _is_ interesting."

"Mr. Wayne," Selina greeted him formally as they entered the dining room. "I hope you and your guest find everything to your liking," she said as she uncovered steaming bowls of reheated soup, and delicate ham sandwiches with cups of earl gray which she knew both of them favored.

"Thank you, Selina," Bruce nodded at her. "I'm sure it will be more than fine. Why don't you get some rest, now. After Talia departs, I'll be sleeping myself for a while," he told her as he saw the brunette to her chair before taking his own.

Selina simply nodded, and walked away. He could feel her sadness. And her envy.

"So, you do not…..? I mean, you still…..?" Bruce lifted the tea cup, and sipped deeply.

"I'm still a man, Talia," he told her with a knowing smile. "If that is what you mean to ask."

"Of course," she smiled back, and lifted her spoon to stir the thick soup.

"This is not canned," she remarked in surprise as she sampled the thick broth that was quite tasty.

"Selina is a very fine cook. She could have been a gourmet had her tastes and talents not led her….elsewhere."

"Of course," Talia murmured, and made a sound of appreciation as she tasted the soup. "Yes, this is very good. Better than some of those soups those pretentious Frenchmen offer."

Bruce chuckled.

"I'm afraid Alfred never cared for French chefs either. He thought they were always too fond of drowning foods in tasteless glop, as he put it."

"Yes. Alfred was a dear. And a formidable man in his own right as I recall. I shall miss him, too."

"His funeral is this Friday at two. Gotham Centennial."

She gave him a telling expression.

"I think he would be pleased if you came," he told her.

She smiled faintly. "Thank you, Bruce. I will be there."

They were just finishing their meal when the crash of glass sounded all around them, and the heavy drapes over the dining room windows came crashing down as bright sunlight filled the dimly lit room.

"Taste the purity of God's light, demon," a man in dark gray from head-to-toe hissed as he smirked at Bruce from behind his mask.

Four others crashed in through other windows, and aimed crossbows at him. All wore silver crucifixes.

"You dare…..come into _my_ house….uninvited," Bruce roared, and moved like quicksilver, ignoring the bright sunlight that fell over his exposed flesh as he dropped two of the men with crossbows before they could even aim them.

Another flung a sphere that exploded over his chest, drenching him with dampness as he stared down at the shirt that was nothing more than wet.

"Holy water," he smiled coldly as he lifted the third man, pulling him in front of him in time to intercept the bolt fired at him by the fourth. The man wailed as it stabbed deep into his lower back. Not fatal, but more than painful.

"You brought the wrong weapons," he told the first man as he flung the wounded man aside, and slapped the fourth hard enough to drive him against a nearby wall, unconscious before he hit that barrier. "And you face the wrong demon. The true enemy of life is the man that dispatched you. The true blight on this city is his accursed ambition," he roared, and bared sharp fangs even as he leapt atop the last man.

The man gasped, and tried to thrust his cross into Bruce's face.

Bruce stood upright, one hand wrapped in the man's gray tunic, and held him firmly in place as he took the cross in his own hand, and held it before him.

"Look, demon-hunter, and listen well," Bruce said as he stood there bathed in warm sunlight as he held the cross, and his shirt remained wet with holy water. "What does all this tell you?"

"It…. It suggests that…..whatever you are…..you are not….._evil_," the masked man grimaced.

Bruce dropped him, and tossed his cross onto his lap as Talia came up behind him.

"Gotham is mine, demon slayer. I protect it. Even from your master," he spat. "Get out. Now."

The man lay there for a second as Talia smiled at him.

"For shame, Tocul," the woman murmured. "You know who I am, too. Do you think I would be standing here if my beloved were truly a creature to be feared?"

"Mistress," the man rose and bowed. "Forgive us. We were told…."

"Learn to think for yourself. Now, get out," Bruce snapped.

"They truly did not harm you," she asked him after the men helped their wounded friend out of the nearest broken window, and disappeared.

"They annoyed me," he sniffed, picking at his damp shirt. "Do you know what those windows are going to cost to replace? Why does no one use the door…..?"

He trailed off as Talia started to giggle.

"Okay, I deserved that one," Bruce chuckled himself. "I'd better go make some calls. It's going to rain this evening, and I'd prefer not to have to replace the carpets, too."

"Bruce," Selina came in, too late to help, but obviously alarmed from the earlier sounds of battle.

"Just a case of mistaken identity," she was told as Bruce turned to face her. "We definitely need to upgrade the manor's security, though," he told her. "They got in far too easily."

"Leave it to me," Selina told him. "I can do that much."

"Selina," he told her, hearing again her despair that seemed to cloud her of late. "I appreciate _all_ your help. I'll call the repairmen," he told her. "For now, it seems I'll have to delay my rest."

She nodded, and then looked down to see a fallen cross.

"Vampire hunters," she asked him with a frown.

"It's Ra's. He didn't like my ultimatum."

"What will you do?"

"He'll be the first to know," Bruce smiled.

"And I," Talia asked.

"I think you already know, Talia," he told her. "Your father's immortality is about to run out."

"And mine," she asked quietly.

"I am sorry."

"I know. But I don't really mind," she told him, lightly kissing her cheek. "Now, why don't you go and rest. Even my eyes see the strain on you, even if you refuse to yield to your fatigue. Ms. Kyle and I can clean this mess."

Bruce smiled.

"Just make sure the windows are in place before it rains," he said, and went to the stairs. "Good afternoon, ladies," he nodded, and headed to his own room.

"Good night," Selina murmured.

"The day does not hurt him, but it troubles him all the same, doesn't it," Talia asked Selina after Bruce left.

Selina eyed her, then nodded. "He said it's like his skin is tingling, as if pricked by needles, but nothing more serious."

"He didn't react to the holy water, or the crosses, either," Talia remarked thoughtfully.

"Taking notes for your father," Selina asked her curtly.

"Sheathe your claws, cat," Talia smiled. "I am not here for my father, but for myself. The point is…. Bruce is not evil. Is he?"

"A bit obsessed, but never evil. If he were, most, if not all of his enemies would have been lain to rest long ago."

"And we would not love him as we do," she murmured as Selina said nothing to that.

"We should call the repairmen at once," she said, eyeing the chaos in the room. "I assume they are…..discreet?"

"Naturally. Alfred left a list of companies that know to do their jobs, and say nothing. Mr. Wayne pays them too well to risk their services being discontinued by gossiping."

Talia nodded. "Then I shall start cleaning up while you call."

"You don't have to…."

"I see your fatigue, too, Selina," she called her now. "Don't follow Alfred to the grave too soon. I've the feeling Bruce will need you more than he realizes in the days ahead."

"What do you mean?"

"You must know, if he destroys our link to the pits, we will likely lose our vitality in this life, too. I doubt that I will last any longer than my father after he does whatever he is planning."

Selina started at her in astonishment. "But…..?"

"I've lived too long to think I can last forever. My only regret is I won't be able to stand at my beloved's side as I have always longed to do," she sighed. "So, I shall stay with him as long as I can."

"Surely Bruce doesn't know…..?"

"He knows. Our beloved is a careful, and meticulous man. You know that, Selina," she said, and went to take the empty dishes from the table first as Selina was left to stare after her.

"How can she be so calm about….dying," Selina murmured aloud as she turned to find a phone.

*******

Ra's felt the change almost instantly as his private jet carried him toward Metropolis, his next stop in his current campaign he refused to yield in spite of the detective's predictable interference. He was still plotting when he suddenly paled, and he clasped a hand to his chest.

His heart clenched, and his eyes bulged as he felt the preternatural vitality that filled him suddenly ebb, and fade. He felt his body, once energized with new life from his most recent rise from the pits that gave him unending life, sag as if he were but a toy whose batteries had been abruptly jerked out.

"Detective," he hissed, knowing at once what had happened. "Damn you…..!"

"Master," Ubu came to him at once, seeing his master's distress. "What…..?"

Ra's laughed bitterly, realizing all his plans, all his machinations, were about to end.

He had lived too long. His body was too weary of a sudden to take the centuries he had accumulated without the fortifying energies of the Lazarus Pits. He coughed violently. Then weaker. And then fell back in his seat, unable to even speak as he felt his life dimming, and his fear of that ultimate shadow ironically took the form of a bat even as he realized Ubu was speaking, but he couldn't hear him as his vision began to fade.

"Talia," he whispered soundlessly, wishing she were with him at what very well could be the end of his long life.

Ra's suddenly realized he was very, very cold, and frightened. And then he felt nothing at all.

*******

"Talia," Batman turned to the kneeling woman who was fading before his eyes after he dropped his special 'gift' into the Lazarus Pit under Gotham.

"Forgive me, b-beloved," she rasped as she emerged from the shadows. "I…..I wanted to be….with you….. But….."

Batman knelt beside the trembling woman, and lifted her gaze back to his.

"I feel it leaving me. Life. As father must."

"I would have preferred another way."

"I know. You were always…..an honorable….."

She stopped to cough softly, looking fearful as wide, green eyes flared in alarm. "I….didn't think….. I would feel so…..c-c-cold."

"Talia," he murmured, pulling back his cowl to look down at the woman who followed him after the night had fallen, but didn't try to stop him as he had half expected.

He had easily rid himself of the twenty-four ninja assassins guarding the pit, and then dropped in the serum that was half genetically-enhanced serum, and half magically-based formula to forever prohibit Ra's from using the pit again. Unfortunately, that also included any of his blood, too.

Including Talia.

"I love you…..Bruce," she smiled weakly.

"There is another way," Bruce told her, and held up a small, black capsule.

"I….."

"It is your choice. To be as me. Or go to that which awaits all of us in the end."

She smiled.

"You should have offered it…..to Selina."

"I did," he smiled. "She turned it down."

Talia stared at him, tears in her raw, red eyes as her flesh began to wither.

"I…..love you," she murmured, and closed her eyes.

*******

He walked out of his office, and eyed the streets.

Emptier than usual.

It didn't help that the stories of the new/old Bat were growing. Just when everyone was ready to find the freak's body in a gutter some morning, it seemed the aging hero had undergone a miraculous revitalization of some kind, and was back in his prime like some kind of freaking phoenix. It was bad enough when that big-titted Kyle was hanging around trying to talk his pigeons into flying the coup. Now he had a shrinking list of clients as men once more shivered at the mere stirring of shadows, or the faintest breeze that might presage something unseen passing.

"Well, I ain't afraid of no freak in a mask," Elliot Parkes hissed.

"That's….unfortunate," a voice rasped from behind him. "For you."

He turned to stare into the shadowy silhouette of the Bat.

"Let's chat, Mr. Parkes," the creature standing behind him smiled an evil smile, and then Elliot wailed as he found himself rising over the city as if jerked into the dark sky by the very hand of God.

Or the devil.

"I got rights," he finally recovered enough to sputter as he found himself kneeling on the edge of a roof overlooking the small motel that was his little corner of a vice empire that covered the city.

"Funny how all of you vermin know your rights, but refuse to grant them to anyone else," the Bat drawled in that weird voice that Elliot just refused to accept was real. No _human_ voice could sound like that. He had to be wearing something….. Something that made it sound that way.

"There… There are…..laws….."

"There are," Batman agreed, and lifted him in a single hand, leaving him dangling over the edge. "The most important one for you now is the law of _gravity_."

"You…. You don't kill," he whined, looking down into the stygian depths below. He couldn't even see the ground, but he knew it was there. He feared it.

"A fall from this height _won't_ kill you," the Bat chortled darkly. "You will, however, wish for death as your broken body aches and complains, and leaves you just another helpless victim of the stronger predators around you. But you won't die."

"What do you want from me," Elliot whined. "I'm just a pimp. I don't do nothing but run a few whores. I'm not like…..like those _other_ guys."

"No, you're worse. You prey on innocence and trust. You corrupt the young that only need a helping hand to return to their true lives. But you deny them that chance."

"Please. I'll quit. I'll quit. I _swear_," Elliot wailed, feeling his lapels slowly slide through that gloved hand.

The grip tightened.

"Forget the law," Batman pulled him close to dark, fathomless eyes to growl in his face. "Heed _my_ law. You may stay, but you will _help_ those that come to you. You will make this place a sanctuary, and a refuge. You will change your methods to ensure those in your care are assisted in any way they require. Be it a refuge, or a place to recover until they are strong enough to go their own way. But you will not abuse them. Or exploit them. Nor allow anyone else to do so. You will do this for me, and for the sake of your own soul," Batman commanded.

"All right," Elliot nodded, his slacks feeling suspiciously wet just then, but not caring as he clung to that unyielding arm that was all that held him up just then. "I'll do anything. Anything you want."

"See that you do, Parkes. Or there will not be a hole big enough to hide you from me," Batman growled, and simply vanished after Elliot was dropped on his knees back on the roof.

He stared around, but saw nothing but shadows. Whimpering in fear, he moved toward the fire escape. He finally reached the ground in time to see Bethie, a fourteen year old blonde with a scarred face from her one of her more violent johns being approached by a staggering drunk. He looked around, and walked quickly over to stand in front of the sad-eyed girl.

"Get lost, buddy," he said quickly, curtly, making Bethie frown.

"Go back inside, girl," he told her. "In fact, tell everyone to retire. I'll talk to you all in the morning. We're…..doing something new from now on."

"But….El?" "Just go inside," he said, glancing around uneasily at the shadows that seemed all too alive to him as the drunk sputtered, and complained, waiving a bill in his face.

"Just get lost, buddy. We're closed," Elliot told him, shoving him off the sidewalk to land sprawling in the street.

"Hey. I got rights," the pasty-faced drunk complained, scrabbling for his fallen cash.

"Ain't we all," Elliot agreed. "Do yourself a favor. Go home, and sleep it off. This side of town ain't safe."

The man cursed violently, but walked away after gathering his cash.

Elliot couldn't help but look around as he rounded up his other girls on the block, and herded them inside. Making sure every one of them didn't have a john left in their rooms before he told them all the same thing. They had the night off, and they would talk about a new business in the morning.

Overhead, the Bat watched, and satisfied for the moment, turned to more pressing concerns. Venom might be stopped, but there were still supplies in the city, and those using it. They had to be dealt with, too.

*******

The pale-skinned man with dark green hair stared out of his cell at the moonlit city.

First, he had been tormented by claims that the Bat was dead. That an ordinary thug with an ordinary gun had put an ordinary bullet into his longtime rival. Glittering eyes had actually wept genuine tears for his mirrored opposite at that moment. Then he heard of the Bat-Phoenix. He heard of a demon in the shadows that haunted Gotham, and was driving the thugs back into the shadows before they could fully emerge. Not long after, he saw them drag Croc back into Arkham. The mighty reptile had been badly beaten, his teeth pulled out to the last molar. The look in those once manic eyes had been one of genuine, soul-numbing fear. Fear and despair.

He knew the look. He usually caused it. He had never seen it in Croc's eyes. The cannibal didn't have the capacity to care beyond his next heist. Or meal. Not necessarily in that order. But he wore that look now. It looked carved into him.

Now the gossip that filtered into the sanitarium actually claimed old Ghully himself was toast. That Bats somehow pulled the plug on that demon once and for good. The new commish was still being as stodgy as ever, denying the city recognized the reborn vigilante, and suggesting someone had simply replaced the old Batsy, and was just as unwelcome as the last.

He watched the night, and being in touch with the madness around him on a visceral level, knew there was no new Batsy. Just a new trick. He wondered how he had done it this time. He was always amazed at how his moral opposite could pull off the things he did. Overcoming his own limitations, and even his own hate and rage, to keep up his relentless campaign.

Did nothing slow him? Could nothing stop him? He was starting to wonder if he even had a dance card left in the old game. He, unlike the new Bat, was getting old. And even worse, things just weren't as funny as they once seemed. He truly wondered why that was. And the question made him sadder still.

Without answers, he continued to watch the city's silhouette from his cell, wondering if he could see the Bat from here if he came out to play.

*******

"I'm back," Bruce said as he jumped from his car the moment he parked, and the hydraulic lift turned to aim it back the way it had come.

Talia and Selina both turned to face him.

"We have had guests, darling," Talia smiled at him, holding a glass with a dark red fluid filling it. "Some of your….former compatriots stopped by to commiserate with you over Alfred's passing."

"I know. I met a few of them while I was out," he nodded. "How are you feeling tonight?"

"Better. I remain weak, but I have ceased to die. Isn't that curious? It is as if that which I was is not yet ready to yield, and yet that which I am apparently becoming has yet to fully…..blossom."

"It may be because you never truly died," Selina told her.

"That is possible," Bruce nodded. "I died the very moment I swallowed the serum. It might account for the….strength and degree of my transformation."

"I believe I shall cope as I am," Talia assured him. "I have no wish to experience what you must have experienced in those final moments," she told him.

"Nor I," Selina agreed, looking at the faux blood Talia was drinking.

"There is also the possibility you require at least a degree of true blood to energize your new life, too. I recall I spent the first nights using a combination before I found the synthetic serum to be more than enough for me," Bruce told her.

"I….I don't know about that," Talia told him. "The idea of drinking _that_ still….."

"I know," he nodded at her shudder. "It is distasteful even to me here and now, and yet….it is a necessity. One you might yet need, too."

"I'll….try it later. If it proves necessary. You still have plenty in the clinic since you don't seem to come home as battered as you once did in the past," Talia told him, and Selina actually smiled at the understatement.

"Did you find the rest of the venom," Selina thought to ask him.

"I found two more stockpiles. Ra's was obviously intending to unleash an army of crazed psychopaths on the city. Still, I can't quite think there was more to it than just that. Why just Gotham."

"Especially since my father's plans have never been small, and his thinking was always…."

"Global," Batman nodded. "I'd better contact the League, and alert them the possibility that his associates might still be out there trying to push that stuff. Whatever the true plot, it would be like them to foment the inevitable chaos for their own reasons."

"True," Talia nodded, and both women suddenly frowned as a rush of air exploded in the cavern not noted for drafts of that magnitude.

Batman turned from his computer where he was already working on logging his newest discoveries, and planning his next move when he noted both women were now gaping behind him.

"It's…."

"I know," Batman said, turning to face the powerful hero in blue and red.

"Bruce," Superman said, his eyes fixed on him. "We need to talk."

Not one of them missed the fact that Superman carried a heavy, silver cross in his left hand.

_To Be Continued….._


	4. Chapter 4

_I do not own Batman, or any DC character used in this parody for my own amusement._

_**The Bat: Eternal Night**_

_**By LJ58**_

**Part 4:**

"We have guests," Selina said unnecessarily, more than a little worried as Batman turned to see the powerful hero in blue and red.

"I know," Batman said, turning to face the powerful hero in blue and red.

Not one of them missed the fact that Superman carried a heavy, silver cross in his left hand.

"Bruce," Superman said, his eyes fixed on him. "We need to talk."

"Do we," Batman growled, eyeing the powerful Kryptonian that was the very essence of a hero in the eyes of most of the world.

Behind him, a man in blue and gold had appeared, his face hidden behind a featureless helmet.

"Calm yourself, Superman," the mystic champion of Order said in his ever calm tone of authority. "Whatever is at play here, I do not sense any true taint of evil from our stalwart companion."

"Still," Superman responded, still clutching that cross in one powerful hand, ready to raise it faster than even a true vampire could react if necessary. "We have both heard some disturbing things, Dr. Fate."

"Have you," Batman drawled, staring at him with human eyes, since he had pulled his cowl back earlier upon his return. It was the only reason Superman had addressed him at Bruce, realizing that both the women with him already knew his identity.

"Vampires, Bruce," Superman all but accused, his eyes glancing to the glass Talia still held. "And rumors claim you are killing now!"

"I haven't killed anyone," Batman drawled blandly.

"No? And what of the stories of you finally, and personally taking out the master of assassins? Ra's al Ghul?"

Batman simply smiled thinly, and told him, "I simply removed his mystical bond to immortality. You know what I mean," he informed him. "That he passed as he did was not murder, but simply time catching up to him. Even I wasn't completely certain it would happen. Still, considering what he was trying this time, it was a move I had to make."

"Yet here his daughter sits," Superman pointed out. "Drinking _blood_."

"Look closer."

"The point is that Ghul's daughter survives, and……"

"Because I helped her. Now, are you finished trying to judge what you don't understand, or are you going to listen to me?"

"I would be very glad to hear an explanation. One that would tell me that what I'm seeing isn't what I'm fearing."

"First, let's get one thing out of the way, shall we," Bruce asked knowingly, and pull off his gauntlets before he reached out, and took the cross from the Kryptonian hero. He smirked knowingly when even that most powerful of heroes flinched at his movement.

Bruce knew, however, that Superman was vulnerable to the supernatural, and had crossed vampires twice now with very close calls. He might face extraordinary threats on a daily basis without hesitation, but like all mortal creatures, the man feared certain aspects of the dark.

"You see? As Dr. Fate pointed out, I am not being controlled by anyone, or anything….evil."

"Indeed. I do not sense the claws of Chaos here," Fate agreed, still content to say little, and appear impassive as ever. Neither man didn't doubt he couldn't act when necessary, though. He had aided them both too many times to doubt his arcane abilities.

Batman had little doubt it was why he was here now.

"As to explanations, Superman. It's simple. Just over a week ago, I died."

Superman just stared.

"You're going to have to explain that one a bit more," the hero said, eyeing him in a manner that suggested Bruce had just been swept with the man's powerful x-ray vision.

Bruce smiled an enigmatic smile, and nodded. "First, you'll have to see a few things to understand what I did, and how I did it."

"All right," Superman agreed. "We're listening."

*******

Ubu shuddered in anticipation as he carried the small urn to a secret temple far from prying eyes. He set the urn with his master's ashes on a large, stone altar, and looked around before he continued beyond the alcove into the rear of the ancient rectory. He would have brought the master's daughter, too, but had been unable to find where she had passed when the meddling mortal had somehow slain the demon's head, and made the Lazarus pits useless in resurrecting his ageless master.

He had to content himself with bringing the ashes of his fallen superior here to the temple of the League of Assassins. The place where that ancient order had been first conceived, and launched against the world.

He walked down a dimly lit, but nevertheless immaculate corridor of dank stone, and reached an apparent dead end. Caution, and a natural wariness had him glancing around, his canny eyes sweeping every shadow before he reached for a certain block in a certain part of the wall, and pressed a certain series of stones in a certain order.

He waited for the grating to stop as the stones drew back, knowing even that opening was a trap for the unwary as he waited for the passage to fully open before pressing the blocks again in a certain order before he ever stepped into the now revealed passage.

He smiled coldly as he descended into the true temple of the League, where his master's legacy awaited. And he would unveil the means of striking back at the accursed vigilante once and for all.

*******

"An interesting tale, and a most curious application of the powers of night," Dr. Fate remarked when Batman had finished telling all to the two heroes as he showed them the synthetic blood substitute he used himself.

"Still," Superman frowned. "What if your serum loses its efficacy? What if you end up overwhelmed by the darkness you apparently distilled, and took into you? What if…..?"

"What if your Kryptonian nature overwhelms your humanity again, Kal-El," Batman cut him off. "What if one of your science projects in your polar clubhouse gets out of control. Again. What if? We can ask those questions all day, but they don't mean anything," he snapped. "I did what I had to do, and if it comes to that moment that it seems I might lose control of myself, I'll do what I have to do _then_ as well. Just as you do."

"But you all but made a bargain with…..a demon," Superman hissed. "Even I know enough about these things to know……"

"Frankly, Superman. You don't know as much as you think. For a super-evolved descendent of a race of scientists, you can be….."

"Gentleman," Fate's sonorous voice cut into their argument. "Might I ask you a question?"

"If it will help, of course," Superman agreed, knowing how difficult it was to argue with Batman at the best of times.

"Perhaps it will. Batman. Superman. Do you know the difference between angels and demons?"

"Well…..demons are evil," Superman said grimly. "Obviously."

"No. There is no difference," Batman murmured, surprising Superman with his response. "Only their _choices_ mark them, or divide them."

"Just so," Fate nodded at him. "Angels and demons are one breed. One creature. Sharing the same traits, abilities, and power. Only their _will_ divides them, and sometimes, that schism can be difficult to discern. Just as are men, and their choices. Let that guide you, Batman, when you are unsure of your own path."

"Are you saying….?"

"I am saying nothing, Superman," the gold and blue mystic told the Kryptonian as Batman only stared at the pair of them as Talia and Selina stayed pointedly silent. "But ask yourself, do you still trust our comrade? Or is your definition of good and evil, right and wrong so rigid that none can waver beyond your boundaries without facing your censure?"

"It's not that, but…..?"

Fate smiled unseen behind his helmet as he gestured at Batman. "I see the heart of Chaos every day. I do not sense the taint of that darkness here, Superman. I understand your fears, but know this. I have seen devils _weep_, and angels scorn the suffering of those less fortunate. Which of them would you pity more?"

Superman said nothing.

"Batman," Fate turned to him. "I hope never to have to face you as an opponent. As you are, I do not expect to ever have to do so just now. May that be ever true."

And typically, in dramatic fashion, Fate vanished in a blur of blinding light.

"Anything you want to add, Superman," Batman demanded of him.

"Fate seems to trust you, and I want to do the same," Superman told him with a nod. "But when I heard rumors that you had become….."

He trailed off helplessly. He had faced vampires twice before with genuinely close calls. He had even once helped Batman face an army of vampires, and almost ended up one of the undead himself. It was not a fond memory. A superhuman vampire would have caused true damage to the world. Even one like Bruce was more than disconcerting.

"If I felt I was becoming, or became a threat, _I'd_ deal with myself without your help."

Superman hid his surprise at that statement poorly.

"Oddly enough, I believe you. Just….take care of yourself, Batman. And don't forget," he said. "You do have friends to help when…..if you need it."

"Don't you have a wife wondering where you're at right about now?"

"All right, I can take a hint. I _am_ sorry about Alfred. Goodbye, Batman. Until later."

Clark shook his head at the cold stare that never wavered that was unnerving even without his mask in place, and vanished in a blur of speed no less impressive than Fate's magics. Talia smiled. "I have never seen him up close before now. He is quite impressive."

"He's too rigidly bound by his own ethical code. Yet he's simultaneously too eager to allow anyone with a semblance of authority to do anything they want simply because they are in places of authority. I'm afraid some day someone is going to exploit that schism in his personality to make him do something genuinely appalling," he admitted.

"And what if they do," Talia asked him with a frown as he envisioned that power in the hands of men without conscience.

"I'd stop him," Batman told her.

"Him," Talia blinked.

"He could do it," Selina purred out of habit.

"I believe you, and him," Talia smiled at her beloved as she set her empty glass aside on a nearby counter. She had been unable to finish until the Kryptonian had left. It was as if she were unable to consume even the faux blood in the presence of one that seemed so…..pure.

Not that she considered herself possessed of any less integrity. Still, she didn't image one like Superman begging for life even when he faced death. Not as she had. In the end, she had been unable to face her own death after all, and the hunger for life had still burned in her heart in spite of all the years she had lived. She took Bruce's magic pill, and while she was not dead as she should have been by now, neither was she yet fully recovered. Still, she felt the difference in her now. She now seemed possessed of a genuine need to be with him. More than ever. It was almost…..a hunger.

"Well, now that uninvited guests are gone, let's lock up for the night," Bruce said, dropping his cape near a chair as he went back to the computer. "I'll send the data we've collected to the new Oracle, and let the League know about this hopefully foiled plot, and then I'd best retire."

"I am ready for bed," Selina admitted with a yawn.

"As am I," Talia smiled hungrily at Bruce.

He, naturally, didn't seem to notice. She wasn't offended. She knew her beloved all too well.

*******

Ubu walked to the thick urn in a small chamber, and stared around him. Four monks in dark red robes stared impassively at him as they sat chanting endlessly as they faced the urn from the four corners of the room.

"Cease," he commanded, and without a reaction, all four monks fell silent.

Ubu steeled himself, and walked around the urn half the height of a man, and then looked again at the arcane markings that covered the sides, and top of the sealed urn. He considered what he was about to do, but felt no fear. No trepidation.

Only outrage for his fallen master compelled him.

He lifted a hard-knotted fist, and shattered the fragile seal that closed the top of the urn. He ignored the blood that flowed from several gashes as the splinters of ancient clay shattered, and fell into, or around the large urn. He held his hand over the opening for a moment more as his blood flowed freely down into the dark container.

Just when he was about to withdraw his hand, a skeletal limb flashed up out of the container, and seized his wrist, pulling it back as an emaciated wraith rose out of the urn, and glowing red eyes fixed on his as long, lupine incisors sank into his meaty forearm.

Ubu hissed, but did not pull free as the thing began to put on the semblance of life with every drop of blood suckled from his arm.

Finally, he pulled his arm back, shouting; "Enough. I have allowed you freedom for a boon, dark one."

Cold, glittering orbs cut into Ubu's dark gaze as thin, bloody lips twisted into a wry smirk.

"You think to command me," the thing that now stood restored and seemingly human before him demanded as he stepped out of the jar looking like a man save for his hellish visage.

"Consider where you are?"

"And where," the demon hissed sibilantly, "Would that be, mortal?"

"You are in the most sacred temple of the demon's head. You are….."

The demon snorted.

"I was ancient before your League was formed. I stalked the world before your god-man was slain, and spread his pacifistic doctrine across the globe. Do you think a few stone walls fret me?"

"Dracul," Ubu sputtered as the thing did not cow before him as he felt he should.

"That name is but another artifice. It means as little as you."

Ubu now felt a faint shiver, but he denied his fear, and smiled confidently as the demon turned to glide over to one of the priests. "Perhaps. But do you recall how you were last defeated? Do you recall how you ended up in our care, demon?"

The demon plucked a robe from the back of the priest who continued to sit without reacting as his single garment was taken from him. The demon draped the garment around his pale, lanky form, and eyed Ubu.

"The Bat. We obviously underestimated him."

"As did my master."

Red eyes locked onto his, and the lips quirked again. "So, the undying one is gone? Not so immortal after all," he taunted.

"The master will rise again. He is fated to overcome death."

"You would be surprised how often I've heard that claim," the demon smirked coldly. "We shall see. Still, this mortal wounded us. I should….repay him."

"There is something you should know."

"You still hope to bargain for you life?"

"I raised you. I freed you. I gave you life. Do you not owe your allegiance to me? Just as you owed it to Ra's al Ghul before me?"

"Mortals," the alien tongue clucked. "You are so delightfully naïve. You never fail to amuse me."

When the demon turned to leave the temple the urn was no longer empty. The remains of the faithful servant was stuffed into the jar after being completely drained, and torn apart. The four priests never moved. Never spoke. They simply watched as Ubu died, and the demon departed with a grim cackling chortle.

*******

Bruce stood beside the grave of his longtime friend, and in his eyes, brother.

Selina and Talia waited in the car while the public allowed to attend the service stood respectfully back, and only a few close friends stood at graveside with Bruce as he said his final farewell to an old friend. Dick Grayson was uncharacteristically silent as he stood nearby, having heard very little from his guardian the past few days, and still astonished to have learned half of what he did.

The day itself seemed most unlikely for such a somber mood as the sun shone brightly in the clear sky, but Bruce didn't seem to notice.

Finally, the official service was over, and most of the public and press departed as Bruce simply stood silent vigil as if awaiting something. Or someone. One of the official police escorts stood out near the gate watching him as much as she watched the dispersing public to ensure there was no trouble for the at times infamous son of Gotham. Rene Montoya never approached him, though. It wasn't her place to disturb the master in his mourning. Not in public.

Selina and Talia finally left the car to join him and Dick as Tim showed up, only then daring to approach as he didn't exactly have a public connection to Bruce Wayne.

"I'm really sorry, Bruce," Dick told him as Bruce finally looked his way.

"It was his time," he replied not for the first time.

"What disturbs you, beloved," Talia asked him, wearing a wide, black hat with a veil, as it seemed her eyes were unusually sensitive to the sun in spite of her own otherwise apparent immunity to its affects.

"Didn't you _feel_ it," he asked quietly. "He's back."

"He….? Not….father?"

"No. Worse."

Bruce looked around those that could understand what they faced once before, and whispered its name.

Dick was horrified. As were most of the others.

Talia simply put a hand on his shoulder, and murmured, "Then we shall face him together this time."

"We'll have to watch Montoya," he said, glancing over to the woman that had been put back in uniform by the new commissioner after defying an order not to speak to the press regarding the 'new' Batman. When she publicly championed his efforts to help keep the city safe, she was demoted back to patrol.

The once driven officer didn't seem to care.

She literally seemed to now live only for Bruce. Only his commands to keep vigilant, and 'spy' on the police for him kept her at her job. Otherwise, she would have been dogging him again as she had when he first manifested his vampiric nature after his revitalization. He turned from the officer after a faint nod, and looked at his people even as Tim asked, "We can handle him, though. Right?"

"Leave him to me. I believe he will come for me first anyway. You just stick to your regular patrols, and let the city know we aren't letting up."

"And me," Dick asked. "I could stay….."

"As you once so succinctly put it, you have your own life now. Don't worry, I'll be fine," Bruce told him. "This time, we'll be on a more even playing field anyway. I have the advantage of knowing he's coming, too."

"Still, the fact you could….sense him…."

"Let it go, Dick," Bruce told him. He then looked down at the grave, and shook his head. "So long, old friend," he murmured, and turned back toward the car with both arms circling the waist of one of the women.

Unseen, a paparazzi would soon publish that photo, accusing Bruce of being a playboy to the very end, even at his butler's funeral. As was typical, Bruce Wayne would offer no comment, or explanation.

*******

"You were right, Bats," the Flash was saying as his colorful visage filled a monitor a few days later as Batman sat before his computers in the Batcave. Talia and Selina were both upstairs, and he was feeling restless in the early hours of the morning before dawn as he studied the efforts to find and eliminate the global stockpiles of the mind-altering venom refined by al Ghul's agents. "We found three storehouses packed with that poison in Central City. GL is hauling it off to be destroyed now."

"Just keep your eyes open," Batman warned him. "That stuff didn't deliver itself, and it came from somewhere. The suppliers might not be finished yet even with Ra's."

"It never ends, does it," the speedster sighed, then flashed a more characteristic grin. "Still, it beats the usual end-of-the-world scenarios. Later, Bats," the younger hero signed off, and left him staring at a dark screen.

Batman eyed the blank monitor for all of thirty seconds before he drawled, "I expected you sooner."

A soft chortle filled the cavern around him as Batman turned his chair to face the shadowy newcomer that manifested behind him out of the very shadows.

"You are as clever, and resourceful as ever, Bat," the lanky man with gaunt, hawkish features smiled darkly. "And yet I see you are not as untouched by the darkness as when last we met. Dare I call you brother now," the demon suggested.

"Never," Batman hissed back.

"A shame. You would make an admirable…..associate. Still, you don't seem surprised to see me."

"We both know your kind cannot truly die. I knew it would only be a matter of time before you were revived."

"Blame a disgruntled follower of your fallen enemy," the demon that last called itself Dracul remarked as he seemed to glide forward, but made no move to attack.

"Ubu. I guessed someone had taken your ashes after I defeated you, but even I didn't think….."

"So, how will this go this time," Batman asked, rising slowly to face the darkly clad creature of the night.

"Are you so eager to face oblivion? Ah, but you aren't quite mortal any longer, are you? Not quite immortal, either. But you are close."

Batman merely eyed the demon.

"I see," he murmured as he scrutinized the dark clad hero. "You've even taken two brides already, too. Two brides, and two vassals. Either one suitable for a third bride. One more, and you will have the right to crown yourself lord of the undead."

"A title I do not want," Batman told him without hesitation.

"And yet here you stand. If you haven't already, you will soon be drawing the undead to you by the virtue of your presence. Our kind to tend to favor…..clans."

"Are you making a point?"

The demon smiled. "Simply pointing out a fact, Bat. If you will not be king, then another will take the mantle. And your brides."

"Not you," he asked.

The demon snorted. "I dallied with the identity of the lord of the night long enough. Frankly, it's gotten quite boring. I thought I'd sit back and watch this time as you fumble your way through things, and see if you survive long enough to mature as a true immortal."

"So you did not come to fight," Batman commented more than he asked.

"As you must have surmised, or you might have attacked the moment you saw me."

Batman said nothing.

"I have not survived this long by being foolish, fledgling," the ancient demon smiled. "I knew you imbibed a portion of my essence. I knew you would sense me, and I allowed it. Now, I deny it," he said, and just that quickly, Batman realized he could no longer sense the creature in spite of the fact he still stood before him.

"So, what now, Alucard? Or whatever you intend to name yourself this time."

"A tiresome name," the creature yawned, and shook his head. "I thought I would try….Adam for a while this time."

"Clever."

"I thought so. Frankly, the whole Dracul persona has lost its mystique when silly schoolgirls fawn over their idealized versions of my demons as if they were romantic images of desire."

Batman snorted.

"I blame Stoker. He started the entire romanticized movement."

"You said I had to name myself lord of the undead," Batman suddenly asked. "What if I don't take a third….bride?"

The newly christened Adam smiled. "Clever little Bat. But as I told you, if you don't take the mantle, someone will. And two brides command a third, and the others will be coming soon enough. Their presence will compel a decision of you, like it, or not."

"And you only intend to watch this time?"

"When you live as long as I have, _brother_, you take your amusement where you find it."

"If you are supposedly above us, why did you even play the vampire lord for so long," he demanded.

Adam smirked. "I did say I was bored? Besides, when the assassin revived me last, and pointed me at you, I thought I might have finally found a true challenge. And a suitable….heir. I'm still waiting to see if either is true."

The demon swirled and faded as he vanished back into shadows without another word.

Batman stepped forward, his senses telling him the creature was gone, but still unable to sense if he were, or not now. The demon had apparently been as good as his word, and was now blocking his ability to sense him.

Not completely unexpected, but the words were.

"Well," he asked the darkness behind him.

A caped figure stepped out of the background, shimmering as the golden cloak shimmered as Dr. Fate revealed himself to Batman.

"You were right. He is the original vampire lord. He was restored."

"But he's more."

"Much more. He's one of the Fallen. The original Fallen."

"Not…."

"No. That one would not bother with games. He is….far more direct. If no less subtle in his directness."

"Could you tell if he were telling the truth in…..all of that," Batman asked.

"Even you know that demons delight in employing as much truth as lies when carving their paths. He might have told you what could be considered true from his perspective."

"That doesn't help. What of this bride business?"

"I was unaware you had taken any," Fate told him quietly.

"Coincidence and happenstance, unfortunately. I actually inherited one, and gained the other in trying to save Talia's life."

"I see. Still, one thing is true. In my experience, all lords of the night have three brides. I do not know why myself. It is one of those curious truths without meaning that few bother to explain. Or question. It is simply….a given."

"Which leaves me where? Facing a challenger, or taking a third bride and…..perhaps succumbing to my own….success?"

"I wish I could be of more help, my friend. But not all of the mystic arts are as open and comprehensible as the ways of Order and Light. I can only offer you this truism. There is power in certain arrangements. Three _is_ a powerful number."

"Obviously."

"Obviously. Still, what it means to you, or the circumstances you face, consider that as the lord of the night, you _could_ then guide and direct those beneath you."

"And then what? If I command them to leave me, then they would go elsewhere to feed on innocents. If I keep them around, I'd be responsible for their victims in this region. And if I accepted that mantle, what is to say _that_ isn't what would drag me down into the true darkness that some of the League is already afraid I embody?"

"A quandary we all face, Batman," Dr. Fate allowed.

"One last question, if you will," Batman asked.

"Of course," the mystic champion nodded.

"If… If I succumb to….true darkness, would you stop me if I cannot stop myself? Because I'm afraid if I do lose control, there isn't anyone else that could."

Dr. Fate studied him for a moment, then nodded again. "That, Batman, is what _I_ do."

Batman paused as Fate started to raise his hands to cast his departure spell, and then asked, "Out of curiosity, do you know Dracul's true name?"

"Some names, Batman," the mystic told him, "Are best left unsaid. To speak them is to summon them. And then to unleash them."

Batman said nothing as Fate vanished. He had half expected that answer. Then he frowned as he recalled Adam/Dracul's words.

'_Two brides, and two vassals_?'

Selina, obviously, was one of the latter. Who did he think was the other?

A flash of intuition, and he suddenly realized that Montoya wasn't his bride. She was….spoils. As his 'brides' would be if another did challenge him, and take his place. So that made her…..another vassal? Then who…..?

He frowned as preternatural instincts merged with his own intuition, and he realized the demon must consider Ivy as his first, true bride, with Talia as the second. If so, then he had yet to fully claim Ivy. Yet the demon spoke as if she were already a true bride in spite of the fact he had never….

He frowned, and paced the cavern as he felt the sun begin to rise high overhead.

But, he suddenly realized, what if taking a bride was about more than blood and sex?

Then that negated his taking Montoya, leaving her a vassal easily enough. But it meant that Ivy had a…..mystical or psychic bond to him that Talia also shared beyond the sharing of their vampiric natures. That, in turn, implied that the entire process was far less physical than even he had first considered.

Almost….spiritual.

That meant that he could inadvertently take that third, portentous bride without even realizing it if he were not careful, didn't it?

He frowned as he stopped pacing.

No. He had once aided Ivy, forming a….relationship with her pointedly in order to save her life, and redirect her goals. Just as he had willfully aided Talia in becoming what she had. Or was yet becoming.

So, then, a bride had to be purposely chosen, and claimed. Only then did he realize that while he had tried to….ease Montoya's distress, he had never truly claimed her. Just sated himself, and her, and left her on the outside looking in. Left her just another helpless puppet forced to….obey his commands.

In that instant, he abruptly realized how selfish he had been. How…..tyrannical.

Even as he scowled bleakly, he turned at the faint scuttling sound to one side of his cave, and locked his eyes on four, furtive shapes that came out of the darkness to kneel before him. One female, three males. All of them looked on him with gleaming, manic gazes and sharp fangs.

Only the female spoke as she rasped in a low, almost adoring tone, "Master. We heard you call. We have come."

_To Be Continued……_


	5. Chapter 5

_I do not own Batman, or any DC character used in this parody for my own amusement._

**The Bat: Eternal Night**

**By LJ58**

**Part 5: **

Batman scowled bleakly into the darkness as he turned at the faint scuttling sound to one side of his cave, and locked his eyes on four, furtive shapes that came out of the darkness to kneel before him. One female, three males. All young. All dressed in virtual rags. All of them looked on him with gleaming, manic gazes and sharp fangs.

Only the female spoke as she rasped in a low, almost adoring tone, "Master. We heard you call. We have come."

Batman could smell the blood on them. Yet they were not sated. They were starving, and desperate. Young, and recently turned, they implied a vampire was still active in Gotham. One besides himself.

It wasn't the demon that now called himself Adam. He would have at least smelled him on them. And these four had been turned at least six months ago his new senses told him. Six months was long enough for there to be far more than just four young teens turned if that were true. That implied either a nomadic vampire, or a very cautious one that knew what he was doing.

That implied one with age and experience.

Just what he didn't need just now.

"Come with me," he told them, and led them to the clinic.

He pulled out four packets of the synthetic blood to offer them, ordering them, "Drink. It is almost dawn, and you'll need to rest. You will do so easier if you aren't hungry."

"You see? I told you he would help," the girl told the three other teens as she eagerly took the packet, likely thinking it was true blood. None of them looked eighteen, he noted as he watched them greedily suck down the offered nourishment without a word.

Batman led them to an annex where a few folding cots were stored, and let them pull out several for their own needs. "Rest. We'll talk this evening."

"Don't you…..sleep here," the girl asked.

"I have other matters to attend this morning," he told her. "Stay below, and do not go out. You'll be safe enough here if you do not touch anything."

The blonde girl eagerly accepted his every word as she sucked the blood packet dry. The three males looked more suspicious, but said nothing even then as they drank their own liquid meal.

Batman eyed them, knowing it was an acid test for his blood substitute, but the four seemed more than content to gulp down the synthetic plasma, and the girl smiled at him as he walked away. This, he realized, was getting complicated as he went upstairs to tend the business of Bruce Wayne before he could rest for the day.

*******

Batman came down early that evening in full costume, not yet ready to reveal himself to these creatures. Not yet. He stopped at the foot of the lift to find Selina slumped in a corner, her features pale, her collar, however, remain untouched.

He turned to see the four vampires nearby.

"She cried out and fell even as we woke, master," the female told him quickly. "No one harmed your vassal."

Cold eyes studied the dark-haired teens, but the three males said nothing, as before. "Why don't they speak?"

"Our maker tore out their tongues when they would not swear loyalty to him," the lanky-haired blonde told him.

"I see. Is this Maker in my city?"

"No. He is farther north. We fled him four nights ago. We were passing through this area when we felt your call. We hoped…. We hoped for refuge when we realized yours was not a call that overwhelmed, but simply invited."

'_You will soon be drawing the undead by virtue of your presence_,' Adam's words echoed in his mind. He would have to discern how, and stop it. Or at least control it. The last thing he wanted was a cave filled with vampires and ghouls under the heart of Gotham.

"How did you get here?"

"We had a van," she told him as he knelt to examine Selina. "We painted the windows black, and stayed in the back during the day. It broke down a few miles from the city, and we feared the sun would catch us when we felt your call," the girl told him.

He nodded as he scooped up the unconscious brunette, and carried her to the clinic to set her on a bed. It had not taken much to ascertain what had happened. She had been exercising. She had obviously pushed herself too far, and too fast, and it had cost her. Apparently, her health was worse than even she had let him know.

"Beloved," Talia appeared just then. "I just heard….. Selina? What is wrong….?"

She looked around at the four that followed Batman into the clinic, and frowned darkly. "Who are they?"

"Guests. For now. Do not worry. They'll behave," he told her.

She stared hard at the female, and the girl quickly dropped her head. The blonde quickly intuited that here was no common vassal, or common ghoul. The dark eyes that bore into her were cold with disdain, and carried the gleam of one that knew death intimately. The three teens followed her guide, and bowed their heads, but two of them couldn't help eyeing her very shapely frame under that snug bodysuit she wore.

"Do you wish to keep your eyes, vermin, then keep them to yourselves," Talia growled at the offending pair. She was stranger to such lackeys, after all. Or to putting them in their place.

Batman didn't chide her as he tended to Selina, setting up an IV after checking her vitals, and ensuring she was otherwise all right. Besides, discipline was going to be a priority with these four if he was going to end up being responsible for them. Something already told him they were a test of some kind, and Adam was watching him. Adding an anesthetic to her IV, knowing Selina had obviously not been resting well from the look on her features, he turned to Talia, and nodded.

"She just needs rest just now. She exerted herself too far, and is paying for it."

Talia understood, and simply nodded back. "And our….guests?"

"New vampires. Fleeing a cruel master. They just happened to end up here of all places."

His tone told her much, for Talia could be just as clever as he at times. "I see. And what shall we do with them now," she asked, eyeing the four. "Aside from feeding and bathing them," she sniffed. "They reek."

The girl's head came up, looking somewhat embarrassed, and somewhat indignant.

"Take them to the living quarters. Find them clothing, and show them the showers. I'll bring….refreshments for all of us. We still have a lot to discuss before I can get to work."

"Master," the blonde asked, looking more than anxious just then. "Are you….letting us stay then? You will….protect us?"

Batman looked at Talia, who kept her expression dark, but impassive.

"So long as you obey my direction, and follow all I command of you, you will be welcome here. Can you do that?"

"What do you command, master," she asked as if eager to abase herself.

He had a feeling that this was more a pathetic and wounded victim than a soulless predator. He wasn't sure about all of them, but the girl still seemed to possess a degree of humanity. She would not be the first to dupe him, though. He would have to be wary.

"For now, go with Talia, my bride," he stated pointedly, "And bathe yourself, and dress respectfully. I do not harbor ghouls or vagrants," he scowled. "I shall address you after you are properly groomed."

She smiled brilliantly. "At once," she bowed to him.

"Take them to the living quarters," he told Talia, and turned to check on his other responsibilities. To his city, and his never-ending crusade. "I shall join you shortly."

*******

Francis Harding and her fraternal twin Franklyn were at the city fair enjoying a night out with friends when they met him.

A tall, red-eyed man who promised them most amazing show of their lives if they followed him to a special tent near the back of the fair where only the bravest, and the most daring were invited. The seventeen year old twins felt they were more than qualified, and willingly followed the showman to his game, or show, or whatever.

They were almost to the darkened tent when they heard a cry from within, and it didn't sound like one of fear, or delight. It sounded like an injured animal in pain. They frowned, started to falter, but the tall man propelled them into the dimly lit tent where they saw five dark shapes huddled over two fallen teens not much older than themselves.

One looked as pale as bleached marble. The other was being drained dry before their eyes as Francis turned to the tall man whose mouth was stretching unnaturally wide as long, glistening fangs seemed to grow out of his maw as he reached for her.

"Run," Franklyn shouted as he dove at the freakish creature, and inadvertently became his first victim as Francis screamed, and tried to pull the thing off her brother rather than flee.

Which doomed her.

She felt hands clutching at her as she pounded in vain at the creature with flesh that felt like living stone, and screamed in vain as she felt fangs tearing at her flesh from all directions as the other creatures now tore at her clothing and vulnerable flesh as once.

"Enough," the tall man roared, and the five were driven back into the shadows just by the sound of the demon's voice. "Did I say you could have her? She was to be mine. Do you know how long I have sought a true virgin?" He stared down at her trembling, and mangled bloody flesh, and sneered. "You've ruined a perfect sacrifice. She could have been my first true bride. Instead, you've made her nothing. Like you," he snarled, and five voices wailed in misery knowing they had failed their lord.

She didn't remember much after that.

Cold, darkness, and pain. Just that.

She woke in another city, in a cramped box in a tangled knot of limbs and carelessly sprawled flesh. She screamed, and battered her way out to find she was far from home, and further from help or hope. It took only three nights before she succumbed to the need for blood. She wailed in misery even as she tore out the throat a drunk old man that willingly followed her into the shadows.

Her master tore off his head so he didn't rise, too.

It was scant comfort that she found one of the silent, hissing shadows was her brother. His tongue already gone, as the others. It turned out that every one of them was given the opportunity of swearing allegiance to their master, or being made mute so they could not swear to another. Francis was not a fool. She bowed to the freakish lord of the carnival when he demanded her oath, and said simply, "I will follow you," adding very, very softly, "_For now, you bastard_."

It was over three weeks before she and Francis worked out a plan. It was made easier by the fact they both knew sign, having a deaf aunt, and those around them were ignorant of the symbols and gestures their dancing hands made. She despised being forced to sleep in a jumble with the nine boys in a large box in the back of a stuffy tent.

The demon simply had no interest in her, and used her simply as another servant to work his nightmarish fair to lure innocents to them.

The fourth week of their hellish resurrection, they made their break. Two of the teenagers with them chose to join them, not knowing what was happening, but smart enough to know the twins were going to flee. They altered a stolen van taken from a victim buried somewhere along the road, and fled without looking back. For four days they drove blindly, simply following the roads in the opposite direction of their would-be master, feeding only on animals and vermin they could catch, only to realize it wasn't enough. Not for their new appetites, and then the van broke down outside Gotham.

All four of them feared the sun was going to catch them, and they knew what that would mean. Their master had another victim he had turned, but who was openly defiant. He made an example of him by staking him out on the grounds just before dawn. That evening, there was not even ash left to mark his passing.

Just when they feared that would be their fate, knowing that even the shadowy forest wasn't enough to shelter them, they felt the pull of another powerful vampire. One that was very close. They followed that summons to the cave, astonished to find that the legendary hero himself was the one that had called them.

Francis was ready to give him her oath then and there. After all, even she had heard he was a defender. A protector. Surely he would save her, and her brother from that….true demon.

She looked at that protector, and vampire lord now after finishing their tale, and waited with a trepidation that she tried not to show. "We're not evil," she told him. "We hate what we are. But we fear death. We fear....what might be next. You must know how that is," she said as she tried to express herself. "But the hunger……"

He handed them each another packet of the synthetic blood. "I do understand."

"Beloved, this….fair is obviously filled with evil….."

"I'll contact the League, and have someone track it. It shouldn't be hard if they leave dead behind them. Fortunately, more than a few of us have some experience at putting down vampires."

The four shuddered.

"Only those that deserve it," Batman assured them as they drank greedily, obviously far from sated after what must have been a long fast.

Francis shivered at his gaze, and then dared ask, "How….? How do you stand it? The drinking of blood," she asked. "The….The taking of life?"

"This blood does not cost the life of innocents. Or those less than innocent," Batman told her, glancing at his own empty packet in the stack left by the hungry vampires. "Nor would I ever feed from a human. It is not my way. If you intend to truly stay and follow me, it will not be your way."

"Gladly," she blurted, and this time all three nodded with her.

"Good. We shall discuss that in depth later. For now, I've work to do, and you will listen to Talia while I'm gone."

"Yes, master," she nodded. "But….may I ask you one last question?"

Batman regarded the girl, and nodded somberly. "What is on your mind?"

"You…. You're a hero. A good person. Do you….. Do you think we'll go to hell for….for what we've become? What we've…..done?"

"I don't know," he admitted after a moment. "But I've enough experience, and exposure with the supernatural to know it isn't all black and white. I've seen demons fight for Good, and angels laugh as they massacred thousands of innocents. Just do what good you can, and trust that who or whatever judges us in the end will be genuinely just."

She nodded faintly, then smiled weakly. "I understand. Thank you, master."

"Watch Selina. She's obviously pushing too hard," he turned to Talia. "Now, I've got to get to work. I've wasted too much time as it is," he said, and left them to head for his car.

The sound of the thunderous engine filled the cave, scattering hundreds of bats for a moment, and then he was gone.

"How do we serve him," Francis finally asked after glancing around, and unsure as to what to do or say as the somber Talia simply studied them while finishing her own drink she poured into a glass.

Talia considered her question, and then also remembered she had never finished telling Bruce her news. She frowned, then finally told her, "I honestly do not know. I'm still learning myself," she admitted.

Francis said nothing to that as she glanced around at her brother, who shrugged. The other two couldn't stop looking at Talia, but tried not to be as obvious about it. They all looked better in clean clothes, and after their showers.

Fed, clean, and relatively secure, the four teens were starting to relax for the first time in weeks. And as they did, they began to grow more curious.

"Where does the master sleep," Francis asked as she followed Talia to the main cave where she had paused to gape at the array of computers and labs around her. Talia only remarked, "Where he wills."

The boys stayed behind to watch television. As Francis followed, however, it didn't take a genius to guess the Batman had to be very rich, or very connected, if not both. She knew a wannabe hero back home, but he was living in his mom's basement, and hand sewing his costume. Not that she gave him much hope. Somehow, the ability to jump ten feet at a time didn't strike her as a very useful power with the things she had seen in her short time in the 'real' world.

"Beloved, are you there?"

"I'm just approaching Gotham. What is it?"

"Something I heard that I thought you should know. I saw one of father's…..contacts yesterday afternoon while in town with Selina. Beloved, he let it slip that the League of Shadows expects it's master to rise again within the month."

The radio was silent for a time, but then Batman's growling voice replied, "I wouldn't put it past him. He always was clever in his own right."

"True, but even I don't know how he would manage this time. Be careful, beloved. If he has found a way around the pits, he will more dangerous than ever."

"So," Batman growled. "Am I."

She didn't reply to that as she switched off the radio.

"Would you like me to watch the other? I used to watch my aunt at home. She's an invalid, but….."

"Selina Kyle is a proud woman."

"So is my aunt," she smiled.

"Go and watch her. Let me know when she wakes. I wish to check a few things," she said, and took Batman's usual chair to start the supercomputer humming as she began to explore possibilities.

Francis murmured her agreement before leaving her to her task.

*******

"I thought I might find you here," Batman said as he entered the room where the man in an immaculate, gray suit was just preparing to leave, suitcases near the door.

The Indian vampire hunter turned, gaping at the living shadow that had appeared as his balcony drapes stirred only slightly, and the grimly clad hero appeared.

"You are proving to be a most unusual….man," the hunter said grimly.

"It's that kind of world," Batman agreed, and walked forward to hand him a flash drive he had taken from the computer in the Batmobile earlier.

"What is this?"

"I've information that might interest you. A traveling carnival of truly evil vampires. Last seen in the Detroit area heading west. They've left dozens dead behind them, and I get the feeling the owner is seeking to elevate himself in the eyes of Hell's hierarchy from what an….informant told me."

"I won't ask," the hunter said, taking the flash drive. "It seems I must postpone our flight home, though. Something of this magnitude must be dealt with quickly."

"Which is why I came to you. My usual associates are busy with a galactic threat, and can't take the time to hunt them. By the time they do, those dozens could be hundreds."

The senior hunter nodded. "You were wise to come to me. Whatever you are. Whatever you've become, you once again show you are still on the side of heaven."

"I'm on the side of Justice, hunter. Never doubt it."

Thin lips quirked. "May it ever be so."

"God willing," Batman nodded, and turned to go.

"Tell me," the hunter stopped him. "Not long ago, we received a tip that four young vampires were sighted in the area. Would you know anything of them?"

Batman looked back over his shoulder, his eyes cool as he stated, "They were dealt with."

The hunter nodded, reached for his suitcases, and when he looked back, the shadowy hero was gone. Opening his door, he saw two of his men still fit for duty, and told him, "We're not going back just yet. Call the Enclave. We've a new threat to face."

"What is it, master," the young novice asked quietly.

"A traveling coven seeking to raise the powers of hell," Tocul said grimly, still clutching the flashdrive in his free hand. "Quickly. Let us go. We dare not waste any more time here."

*******

"I feel like a fool," Selina grumbled, sitting coffee near the Batcomputer at Talia's side. "I don't know why….."

"Yes, you do," Talia told her. "You know he would give it to you if you asked."

Selina sighed, then set her cup aside. "No. I…. I thought about it. I've thought about it for days. Since he offered. But I can't do it. I may have used up my last eight lives, Talia, but….when I die, I want to die in peace. I want to die on my terms."

"I understand."

"Besides, we both know I'll never be that special to him," she murmured as she glanced across the cavern where Francis was dancing along the precipice of the Batmobile's ramp with utter disregard for the drop into stygian depths literally a hairsbreadth from her toes.

Talia shook her head. "You fear losing control."

"That, too," she admitted. "I've seen what…..they can become. I fear for him. And you. But I truly fear for myself. I just don't think I have the kind of strength to face that kind of challenge," she admitted.

"I think you are stronger than you realize in ways you have yet to realize. However, I suggest you refrain from trying to behave as a younger, and more daring woman. You had him quite worried this evening."

"Do you know what he's going to do with them," Selina asked.

"Not a clue. However, I doubt even our beloved knows himself just now. You know how he is when it comes to strays," she chortled.

"Don't I," she sighed, and reached for her cup.

"Are the pain pills working?"

"Well, my hip isn't feeling like someone ripped it out of socket any longer, but I'm not up to cleaning that monstrosity over our head just yet. Br…. Uh, he may just have to allow I'm not going to be the tireless housekeeper poor, dear Alfred was to the end."

"I'm sure that's not what he expects of you," Talia told her.

"Don't kid yourself. Bruce expects the best of everything and everyone around him. Especially himself."

Talia said nothing as she leaned forward in her chair.

"Did you find something?"

"I do not know. Perhaps," she murmured as the brunette eyed the data on the screen. "I'll need to check a few more things. Then….we shall see," she murmured as she continued to work.

*******

Batman was having a surprisingly quiet night after having tipped off the professional hunters, and was considering an early night when the hazy signal lit over the city, filling the night sky with its macabre symbol he had not seen since Jim retired.

As Commissioner Clarke had the old signal removed from police headquarters, he knew only place where it would have originated.

Spinning the wheel, the sleek, rocket-powered car squealed and rolled as tires and jets fought momentum and inertia as he turned to head for Ivy's private estate where her lab was located. He arrived in record time, and easily leapt over the walls, and through the foliage until he reached the back doors to her private nursery.

"Pamela? Is something wrong?"

"Batman," she nodded, and glanced to her right.

The glass ceiling of the nursery had been converted into a makeshift signal by boosting the light even as a vague bat-winged shape was put on the ceiling. "Oddly enough, my….guest chose to have me summon you, rather than call himself."

"Commissioner Clarke," he murmured, staring at the lean, dour man that stood next to Pam.

"Batman. Or whoever you are," he murmured.

"What's going on? I doubt you came all the way here to have Ivy call me because you wanted a social visit."

"No. And I couldn't too well reverse my stance on….vigilantes, either. But….loathe as I am to admit it, I need you."

"Really," he murmured, watching the man in a tailored suit reach into a vest pocket to pull out a small card.

"Really. This one is personal. Someone kidnapped my daughter."

Batman took the card, and opened it to read, "Call off the task force, or the bitch dies." There was no signature, but the silhouette of a penguin was crudely dawn at the bottom.

"It's not the Penguin."

"I can guess that much. Doesn't match his M.O, and we're not even looking his way."

"Who are you investigating?"

Thomas gave him a bleak scowl. "You mean you don't know?"

"I've been distracted."

"So I've heard. They brought in what you left of Croc last week. I'm still hearing complaints from his lawyers, and his doctors."

"Send them to his victims' families. Let them see real suffering before they try complaining on his behalf. Now, who?"

Thomas glanced at the sleek, voluptuous redhead that still scared him. Something about her seeming otherworldly, and this grim, shadowy creature was more than he expected, too. He was used to that brightly clad clown that zipped in, cracked a few jokes, and took off again. Not a shadow that moved out of the night like he was a part of it so silently he had almost cursed aloud at seeing him just appear as he had.

"If you are….who they say. You'll remember Rupert Thorne."

"Thorne died in prison."

"Yes, he did. He left behind a very large empire though. Recently, we heard rumors that someone was fixing the fractured pieces, and reuniting the gangs. Likely they felt emboldened since you were supposed to be….."

Thomas gestured helplessly. Nothing about this man suggested age or weakness.

"I get it. Whoever is behind the resurgence of the gangs thought I was soon to be out of the way, and didn't worry about interference. Until you put a task force together aimed right at them?"

"We've had a good start. Took out the organized drug lords, undercut vice, and almost found their new lieutenants, but they were tipped off at the last minute, and never showed at the meet we were going to bust."

"So, smart, and connected. You've got a mole, too, from the sounds of it."

"I figured that out myself, and put two of my best on it. I faked Bullock's mandatory retirement so I could get him down into Beaker without anyone being suspicious about him hanging around. He told me he had a juicy lead three nights ago when he disappeared, and my daughter was gone the next morning with just that note on her pillow."

"Any leads from the scene?"

"None. Forensics went over her room with a microscope," James told her. "They found nothing."

"So we add professional. I'll go take a look myself, and see what I can find."

"All that matters is my daughter is spared," James told him. "Whoever you truly are…. Whatever your methods…."

"I'll find her," Batman told him, and turned toward the door. "Ivy, we'll talk later."

"Of course," she smiled knowingly at him.

"Say nothing to no one," Batman added as he looked back at the commissioner. And then he was gone. Just…..gone.

"How does he do that," he murmured, staring at the spot where the man had simply vanished.

"He is a bat," Ivy said cryptically.

James said nothing to that as she switched off the makeshift signal, and he headed for the exit after thanking her for her cooperation. She said nothing, and simply watched him depart.

Walking over a thick vine that ran the length of the nursery, and outside under the glass walls, she stroked the main body, and murmured softly to it.

*******

The hum of machinery was deafening.

The chamber it occupied was huge, yet it was filled from ceiling to floor with so much equipment and computer consoles that there was very little room to walk. At the heart of the complex was a single, boxlike container the size of a man.

Only three men, all in dark red, worked around the cramped confines of humming machines. They had been here for well over twenty years, constantly overseeing their charge. Two of them had grown old as they tirelessly worked to upgrade and perfect the devices around them.

Today, the men were finally to put their knowledge to use.

Today, they would actually use the equipment around them, and perform the most audacious experiment ever attempted by their kind.

"Ready," the younger of the trio nodded, he being close to forty.

"Ready," the oldest nodded as he answered in a quavering voice, he being much closer to seventy than not.

"Increase the voltage, and begin the cerebral download," the third man, just shy of sixty ordered as the hum increased, and the discharge of powerful current was heard around them. "Begin cardiac stimulation, and increase fresh plasma flow."

"Data-stream active," the first man reported. "The absorption rate is on track."

"Plasma flow is initiated, and heart rhythm is engaged. Vitals look good."

"Continue full stimulation of all vital organs."

"Electro-chemical stimulants applied. All readings are nominal," the second man reported with genuine glee.

"Nineteen percent efficacy," the younger man reported when his peer looked to him.

"Continue all stims and plasma flow. Increase oxygen levels by three percent."

"Done," the second man reported.

"We have neurological activity," the first reported. "Data-stream has ended, and the brain is functioning."

Thirty-two percent overall efficacy," the other reported.

Secure neural safeguards, and continue physical protocols," the third man ordered, overseeing all their efforts as the humming turned shrill, and the box in the heart of the machinery began to glow faintly.

"Sixty-seven percent," the second called excitedly.

A moment later, he called, "Seventy-three," even as something in the box thudded loudly.

Before any of them could react, the box opened, and a mist of super-cooled vapor hissed over the surrounding consoles as the interior remained hidden behind that ivory fog.

"Report!"

"Eight-two percent," the man watching the vitals called as a pale, thin arm rose out of the container, and a trembling hand dropped onto the edge to clutch at it with a death grip.

"Full plasma influx, and increase nutrient flow by another ten percent."

"Eight-four percent, and leveling off," the other reported.

"Damn," came a low, gravely curse from within the fog that was gradually clearing to show a dark-eyed man of middle years with a carefully trimmed beard. He pulled himself up to sit, staring around the room with surprisingly alert eyes, and then looked down at himself.

The man lifted a hand, studying the flesh, and then looked over at his servants .

"So, I am finally forced to engage this clumsy imitation of my former self? What happened to me," he demanded of his servants. "And do be thorough," he the cold-eyed man demanded as he accepted the robe after climbing out of the birthing sarcophagus that had literally been his womb.

The servants left to aid him began to talk, explaining the events that required the activation of his cloned body even as the lord of assassins began to plot once more.

_To Be Continued…………._


	6. Chapter 6

_I do not own Batman, or any DC character used in this parody for my own amusement._

_**The Bat: Eternal Night**_

_**By LJ58**_

**Part 6:**

He roared in fury.

Behind him, the night was lit with flame, and his left arm burned with the purity of silver that poisoned his unnatural flesh. He ruthlessly tore off the left arm at the elbow to save himself, sickly greenish-yellow blood spattering the ground as he staggered into the night away from the scene of the massacre.

His family, his home, gone.

It was that bitch. Something in him told him that it was her fault as surely as the sun would rise in two hours. She had not only fled with three of his soldiers of the dark, she had sent demon-hunters after him somehow.

He allowed his bellow of rage might have been a bad idea when he was forced to leap high into the trees to escape a flurry of silver-tipped arrows that suddenly flew his way. He became mist, seeking escape in intangibility, but two men in gray came out of the forest to start spraying the entire area with what had to be holy water.

He felt his body seething, as if touched by acid, and felt his control over the mist ebb as he pulled himself back together just in time as he realized his entire face was still burning. Still bubbling. That accursed water was as bad as silver.

He looked around, heard the men converging now.

Heard them rushing to claim their victory.

Smelled not fear, but exultant daring as they closed for the kill. Even the youngest who should have been paralyzed with fear and doubt came equipped with a daring he had not found in any of his prey. He bit back the howl he wanted to issue out of frustration, and let his body break apart again. Mist didn't work, and he was too week to fly. He wasn't even sure he could with one arm maimed. This time, he became dozens of tunneling rats that sought escape in the one direction the men couldn't follow.

He hoped.

*******

Franklyn woke in a sweat, eyes round and wide with fear as Francis felt him stir, and woke with him. Beside them, on their own cots, the two other teens were looking pale and frightened.

They might have fled, but unlike her, they seemed more deeply connected to their old master. They must have felt what she had only dreamed. The death and destruction of the carnival. The gray shadows that struck down the demon's growing army, and set flame to purify the tainted fairgrounds. Then she realized something else.

If they could still sense him, he could still sense them. And he could find them.

"I'll tell the master," she said, understanding their fear all too well in that instant as their psychic link fed her the dread that they had not escaped after all, but only delayed their damnation.

She was halfway to the main cave when she realized it was still day. She didn't even know where he slept. Or how to risk finding him. She went into the cave anyway, and found Talia up, and working.

"Mistress, is the master here, too?"

"What is it, Francis," she asked blandly, having accepted her on an impersonal level even if she was not overly fond of the creature, or what she represented.

"I…. We had a vision. Our old master's carnival was destroyed, and he was sent running, but he escaped. Mistress, I fear he may be coming here. For if we sensed him….."

"He can sense you," she realized, rising from her seat at the computer. "Wait here. I will bring my beloved down to hear this news. And do not touch anything."

The teen was looking at the computer as Talia moved swiftly toward the lift where two poles were planted firmly in the hard stone floor to rise up into a darkness even her eyes couldn't penetrate. She knew, because she had looked.

Right before Talia had forbade her from ever going near the lift again without permission.

Staring at the computer now, she frowned at the symbols, and realized she was looking at some kind of language. Only it was one she couldn't hope to understand. She didn't consider herself stupid, but she was hardly college material, and she had always known it. Franklyn was the brain, but even he would probably stumble over whatever the data on the screen was supposed to represent as it continued to run in rapid streams as it chirped and chimed.

"Francis," a voice murmured, and she spun around to find the master standing there beside his bride in full costume.

In spite of her own vampiric talents, he had still crept up on her without a sound.

Which was probably why she squealed like a frightened schoolgirl, and promptly blushed at doing so.

"I'm sorry. You…. You are very…."

"Talia said you had a vision of a master vampire. Tell me everything."

"I was dreaming," she admitted. "But it was like I was watching a movie. Only when I woke, I realized what I had seen was real. Even the boys were up, and scared of what they had seen. He escaped the hunters, master. And he's coming here! I _know_ it."

"That could be troubling," he murmured.

"I see you have not lost your ability to understate things," a soft voice cooed from the darkness as they turned to stare at the green-clad woman that sauntered over to join them.

"Pamela," Batman nodded. "What brings you here of all places," he asked, not surprised she had found him after all this time. Her skill with communicating with her plants was more refined than ever these days.

"Relax, Bruce. I brought you a gift."

"Bruce," Francis asked.

"You will not call him that again," Talia spat at her in fury.

"Relax, sister," Ivy said as she stepped between the women. "If she's here, she's obviously one of ours now."

"What are you even doing here? You have no place…."

"That is where you are wrong. Or haven't you discerned the bonds we all share," Ivy teased with a coy smiled. "Your beloved is as bound to you as he is to me. _Sister_," Ivy called her.

Talia whirled to stare at him.

"It's not quite like you're imagining, Talia."

"Of course not," Ivy chortled. "Our bonds are far more….elemental," she smiled as she put a hand on Batman's chest, tracing his sigil. "But I did not come here to dally. I found the girl, Bruce. Or rather, my _friends_ did. But you must hurry. I do not know who he is as yet, but I do not think this new player is a very nice man."

"Where," he asked, moving to recheck and load his utility belt. Especially with several pouches of the

"The one place even you might never expect. Harvey Dent's old hideout on Neil and Cane."

"Thank you, Ivy," he nodded, heading for his car.

"You three try to get along," he said, and leapt into the Batmobile.

"The master can go into the sun," Francis gasped as the car exploded down the tunnel, and vanished form the cave in a rush of speed.

Ivy only smiled as Francis stared after the Batman as if looking upon a genuine demigod.

"Down, girl," Talia growled at the young blonde.

"Why, Talia," Ivy smiled, and patted her face. "I do believe you are actually jealous. Can it be our beloved has finally taken you to bed, and now you're loathe to share?"

Talia glared at her, but Ivy only giggled.

"We both know Bruce and I don't have that kind of relationship, and I don't ask it of him. But you do know that certain things are expected of him now? That we shall have to welcome a third sister in time, and you may have to share him further? Perhaps even in bed, too?"

Talia's teeth ground audibly as she shook her head, and demanded, "How do you know of that?"

"Silly, girl. These things always involved threes. Bruce will be compelled to take a third, and only then will he start to realize just what he is becoming."

"Becoming? Don't you mean what he's become?"

Ivy smiled. "Open your mind, sister. Life, or death, is not a door. It's a process. One that never quite ends. And is in constant flux. I….."

She stopped, and frowned. Staring hard at the screen before her, she tapped the side monitor, asking, "Why are you looking at cellular regeneration matrixes? These are very unstable, and not that reliable."

"You….understand this," Talia asked her. "Look at this," she said, and brought up another side monitor, showing more data she had already culled form various sources. "What do you think you do with all this….?"

"It's obvious, Talia," Ivy said quietly. "Someone….is trying to create an enhanced clone. A physically and mentally enhanced clone."

"Father," she hissed. "I've been tracking unusual purchases father's people have been making for several years trying to decipher his plans, and what he might have been thinking toward the end." She paused to frown as she realized who had already seen this data. "Bruce must have realized…..!"

"Perhaps he just did not wish to burden you until he was certain. Cloning, after all, is highly unreliable. It is also similar to the same technology that helped created Bane's serum, and look how well that turned out."

"If there is a way, father's people will manage it," she said grimly. "Now that I know what they must intend, I just need to know where," she said, and began to work again as she sit down before the computer.

"I can tell you it's not in Gotham," Ivy told her, leaning over her shoulder.

"How can you be so certain we should rule out the city?"

"Because, Talia," the redhead cooed, kissing her lightly on the cheek. "My friends would have found him."

Talia turned to frown as the woman sauntered toward the nearest exit without looking back. "Why did you do that," she demanded.

Ivy paused, and looked back toward her. "Why, my dear, dear sister. Didn't Bruce ever tell you? I prefer _girls_. Isn't that convenient," she tittered, and then turned and left.

Talia was left gaping after her.

*******

The Batmobile roared down the side streets just outside town, headed for the faltering Parallax district that had once tried to gentrify the old business district by turning it into small businesses with apartments and homes built into the same storefront buildings.

The project failed, of course, due to the economy, and people's fear of the criminal element that all but ruled Cane Street. Betweens vice, drugs, and the warning gangs, no upwardly mobile professional wanted to even invest in the area, let alone settle there.

At once time, though, Harvey Dent, AKA Two-Face had decided the Gemini Hotel was the perfect place for a felon with a fetish for doubles who liked hiding in plain sight at times. Unfortunately, his penchant for doubles left him easy to track sometimes, and the hotel made an obvious hideout when Batman finally tracked him down after his last crime spree. One that ended tragically when he fell to his death rather than relinquish his obsession with his scarred coin.

He parked a few blocks away from the hotel, and climbed out of the car he parked in an alley before activating the camo-armor. Dozens of tiny, onboard cameras projected what would amount to a cloak of invisibility around the car by masking it with the projected environment from any angle. It should be safe enough from casual discovery long enough for him to find whoever was behind this kidnapping, and the resurrection of Thorne's old crime syndicate.

He had not left the ground at once thinking they'd be looking for him on the roofs, and stayed instead in the shadows of the alley as he eyed the blocks around him, his senses picking up danger even if his eyes and ears did not.

Something about this entire block felt….wrong.

He decided to try something new, and rather than force a confrontation that might delay him, and risk the commissioner's daughter. He kicked in a window, and slipped inside a basement to enter the nearest building, and headed for the maintenance tunnels he knew would access the sewers. And take him across the street, and down the block right under the hotel.

They did not seem to have considered an underground attack since he didn't find anyone along the way. He moved more stealthily than ever as he neared the access panel into the hotel's maintenance tunnels, and pulled it open to stare into the darkness that might as well be lit by sunlight to his eyes. He flowed into the tunnels, and headed for the basement of the decaying hotel.

Pausing once he reached the laundry room, he paused and listened.

Very, very carefully.

He could hear them. Feel them. Ten on the first floor. Five on the second. The third was currently unoccupied. The fourth floor, however, had fourteen occupants. And he smell the fear that roiled off the top floor.

Focusing as never before, he heard a low, gruff voice saying, "Don't worry, girlie. Sooner of later, Batboy will be showing up. I know him. He's all over situations like this. Even when you don't want him. He'll be here, and then…."

Bullock fell silent as he heard a hard boot slam into a too soft belly, and someone spat, "Shut up, piggy. "Nobody but the boss knows about this dump, and you can bet KK is smart enough not to send up flares.

"What if he's right," someone hissed. "You all saw that Batsignal the other night. What if that loser decided to call in the Bat. My cousin said he's worse than ever. You can't even shoot him any more. He's like that cape in Metro…."

"Will you shut up. He's wearing armor. Duh. Just aim for the head or legs."

"Or the crotch," someone giggled.

Then, just below the posturing, he head a soft, low whimper.

A girl's whimper.

For a moment, rage filled him, and with it, an unnamable hunger. He was ready to launch himself upward, and decimate all before him. The Batman was a creature of iron will and grim, logical determination, though, and he did not yield even to his own impulses.

If they were his.

Dampening the impulses alien to his own nature, but not unknown to him, he cleared his mind, and considered his best options for getting the girl, and Bullock, without turning the place into a charnel house. He focused on what he knew, and searched the basement. He found the dumbwaiter with little trouble, and pulled it open. There was a fraying, ancient cord within the narrow shaft, but nothing else. Fortunately, he didn't need it.

He slithered up the shaft as carefully and quietly as a cat-shy mouse, and passed the guards on the lower floors until he reached the top floor. He could hear five more on the roof now, their heavy treads, and restless pacing betraying their presence. As he thought. The whole block was a trap for anyone that showed up and tried to rescue the girl.

Whoever the boss was, his style and initials weren't ringing any bells in his eclectic mind. _KK_ sounded like initials, too. Not a criminal appellation for some would-be mastermind. He moved to open the hatch, then froze, hearing and smelling the lean, hungry thug that walked down the hall just then. He paused at the end of the hall, Batman's own augmented hearing picking out his hesitation before he turned even as his own memory of the blueprints and past experience of this hovel told him where he was in relation to himself, and the hostage.

Hostages, he reminded himself, knowing Harvey Bullock was likely chafing at being caught.

Opening the dumbwaiter's rotting door just an inch, he confirmed the hall before him was empty. He tapped his cowl, activating a small communications device, and murmured softly, "Montoya. Now."

Then he burst out of the shaft, and raced down the hall.

Even as he turned the corner, he leapt upwards, his revitalized body taking to the ceiling like a huge lizard as he scrambled easily down the hall just over the three men before him. He was just past the men that turned at the sound of a rustling cape only to see nothing but swirling dust when he dropped behind them.

They turned at the sound of the cape again, and one man had time to open his mouth, and no more, before Batman rushed down the hall to the room he sought. All three men out cold behind him. One with a fractured jaw.

He was going to have to be more careful. Fighting freaks like Croc demanded far more force than ordinary men. And these were obviously ordinary men. They couldn't even fight. Still, someone had been scraping low when they hired this bunch.

He paused to listen, and heard again the girlish whimper just beyond the door. Along with a soft grumble that he recognized instantly as Bullock. Five other men were in there. He could smell them. Still, that left four to be accounted for since he still sensed nine men other than the hostages. He cocked his head, and smiled.

Out on the balcony. Of course.

He waited just a little longer. He could already hear the sirens. He just needed to wait for the optimum moment.

"Hey, it's cops," someone shouted even as the sounds of sirens now became audible even those dull-witted men within.

Even as he did, Batman burst into the room, spotted the man nearest Bullock with a gun pointed at his head. A batarang struck his hand, making him drop the gun even as it continued on its very carefully chosen arc, and sliced through most of the detective's bonds.

Harvey was a better cop than most realized. He exploited the opportunity instantly, snapping the now nearly severed cords, and snatching up the fallen gun even as Batman flung himself at the two nearest men, dropping them with quick punches even as he turned for the four men on the balcony now turning to look back into the room.

He didn't bother with the other two men in the room. He knew Bullock would cover them even as the girl bound and gagged on the oversized chair wailed in fear at the sight of him as he swept through the dimly lit room like a living shadow.

"Took you long enough," Harvey growled as the sounds of gunfire sounded briefly outside as more sirens filled the air, and more officers began to arrive. His gun was trained on two men glaring at them both. One man in the usual thug uniform of cheap, rumbled suit. The other in a black and white reversible jacket that suggested other enemies.

"Fruitcake calls himself Kopy-Kat," Harvey snorted as Batman began tying up or cuffing the men around him. Starting with the only two still conscious. "Thought he could exploit other skells' M.O.'s and convince us someone else was doing his dirty work while he sailed off into the night."

Batman barely gave the pale, lanky man who had a rather nondescript face a second glance. "He'd better hope he doesn't end up in Arkham trying an insanity plea. Some of those madmen might not like someone stealing their thunder," he growled as the man chose to suddenly turn very pale.

He obviously knew Gotham's usual rogues, too. And knew, that age had not dimmed some of his foes' more manic notions.

"Clarke's people will be here in minutes," Batman told him as he turned back to the door after he cut the young girl not quite ten and still wearing her nightgown free, and helped her to her feet.. "Can you hold them until they arrive," he asked the detective.

"Hey, they only got the drop on me cause it was dark, and they suckered me," Harvey told him. "But I got the drop now, and I got all I need to put these clowns away for good."

"Then I will leave the rest to you, detective."

Batman nodded as the girl asked him, "Can I go home now," in a quavering voice.

"I'm sure your father is going to be here any moment," he told her with a somber smile.

"Mr. Batman? Thank you," she said just before he vanished into the dimly lit hall. By now, even the police must be clearing out the lower floors, and the shooting he had heard earlier was over now, which suggested the goons really were as bad as he thought.

He returned to the dumbwaiter, closed the panel, and listened as dozens of boots stormed down the hall after climbing up the stairs. He dropped down to the basement, and retraced his steps after his sensitive ears heard the girl cry, "_Daddy_!"

He returned to his car, still smiling, and then headed home.

Clarke might not be James, but at least one innocent had been spared the touch of Gotham's Darkness this time around.

He was just about to turn the corner when he saw an exact duplicate of Kopy-Kat running down the street near where he had just turned, and realized the man was free. Only how?

"All units, all units," came over the police band just then. "Suspect has disappeared from custody. Repeat, suspect, identified only as Kopy-Kat, a Caucasian male with sandy hair of about thirty years wearing a black and white suit jacket with white slacks has disappeared from custody. Be advised, he is a possible meta. Repeat, a possible meta."

"Kopy-Kat, indeed," Batman growled as he saw the suspect pause, split into three copies, and each ran off in different directions.

He saw one run right into the path of a police cruiser, and literally vanish when the officers swarmed him. He glanced down the street, and spotted the other two, and pressed down on the throttle as he chose his target.

Meanwhile, five more copies suddenly burst into view, and again confused the chase.

"Command, this is 19-Baker. This guy is everywhere! Literally everywhere! We need more squads just to chase them all down."

Batman growled, and left his car behind to join the chase.

*******

Night came to Gotham as always, and with it, the grim and gritty city seemed to take on a pall all its own as one of its most infamous citizens sat staring at a window near his bed, literally waiting to die. The doctors had all told him it was confirmed.

Cancer.

A nasty, and lingering way to go. Lots of suffering. Lots of pain. No one seemed to pity him.

"Hello, Walter," the misty shape that gradually solidified in his room spoke to him as he looked up from his pillow in bland indifference.

"Well, aren't you the clever one," the man smiled mildly.

The angular visage smirked back in turn. "We both know you're dying, Walter. Dying with a one-way trip to a place you don't want to go."

"So who in their right mind does," he snorted. "But I don't think they care about that upstairs," he smirked. "So do what you obviously do, and get it over with. I won't be begging, or crying. I prefer to go with a…..smile," the pale man said a weak attempt at doing just that despite his obvious pain.

"Walter. Walter. Walter," the tall, gaunt man smiled. "I didn't come here to kill you. Well, not just that. I'm here to offer you something."

"Is that right? Let me guess. Miracle cures and snake oil?"

"Not quite. You have to want this gift. You have to really, and truly want it. Because otherwise, well, we both know what's waiting."

"Hmmmm. What's the catch?"

"For you? Nothing. After all, eternal damnation is likely already waiting on you, my gaudy friend," the tall man cackled softly. "But I can arrange for you to postpone that ending. Indefinitely, if not permanently."

"Really? Well, _do_ go on," the much dulled madman said with a glitter long lost back in his eyes almost as green as his hair.

Dumont smiled, baring very sharp teeth.

"Why don't I just…..demonstrate," he said, and lunged at the pale, sickly man before him with glistening fangs extending from a monstrous maw.

_To Be Continued……._


	7. Chapter 7

_I do not own Batman, or any DC character used in this parody for my own amusement._

_**The Bat: Eternal Night**_

_**By LJ58**_

**Part 7:**

Batman was still slumped over the computer, studying data when Francis came into the main cave.

"Master?"

"You don't have to call me that."

"It's…..expected. I think. Anyway, we were wondering. Have you heard anything? About…. You know? Him?"

"Not yet. I sense him. He's here. But so far, he isn't making any overt moves. Just as well, since I spent the last two days chasing copies of that bizarre meta that decided to try to make Gotham his new home," he grumbled.

He knew even the police weren't sure if they really got the right one. After all, when you were dealing with a man that could literally create unlimited copies of himself, how did you know if you had the right one when you finally caught him. Even his senses had been fooled more than a few times, since apparently he made exact copies that were capable of moving and even thinking independently until they were 'burst' like balloons by the man that created them.

He supposed they would find out soon enough if Kopy-Kat was still out there. But they knew his M.O., and his abilities now. He would know what to look for in the future.

"What if he comes here," Francis asked.

"Whatever he does, we'll face him when he makes his move," Batman told her, and understood why the four young vampires had gotten so quiet lately.

At first, they were simply worried that he might yet stake them. They were obviously not the blood-mad ghouls he had met before, though. He wondered if it had something to do with the synthetic blood diet they all shared. Or if they were simply the kind of people that couldn't succumb to such behavior even when faced with the monstrous shift in their lives they now suffered.

"I've faced worse, Francis," he told her, his mask currently down since by now they all knew his real identity. "I'm still here. Trust me. We'll stop this demon, too."

She nodded, and then asked, "The guys? Well, all of us. We were wondering….. Ah, what are we going to do? I mean, even after this ends. You know, with the old master, and all? What are we supposed to do? You've been great, and really, we aren't complaining, but…..hanging out in your cave just sucking down your blood supply? It's kind of dead-endish," she said with a wan smile.

Bruce smiled back just as somber. "Yes," he agreed. "I suppose it would be. Just now, however, I am trying to….."

"What is it," she asked.

"Joker disappeared from Arkham. Only according to his medical charts, there is no way he should have managed. He's suffering from stage two malignant carcinomas brought on by his…..condition."

"Do you think _he_ did it?"

"I don't know. I don't really see this vampire master of yours bothering with old lunatics. Still, I'll keep it in mind. As to your friends, tell them I'm still considering things, but for now, we need you to stay underground, and out of the public eye. Don't forget, you're still missing persons back home. You don't want to draw official notice, and have the wrong people try to drag you home."

"Oh. Right," she grimaced. "Man," she sighed. "Mom must be freaking by now. Funny, I just now thought of her."

"I'm sure it's understandable," he told her. "Don't worry. Just tell your brother, and your friends to stay patient, and we'll work everything out in due time. All right?"

She sighed. "All right. I'll tell them."

Batman watched her leave, sighing as the irony that he should end up protecting vampires. Even if they were relatively innocent children caught up in a nightmare beyond their experience. He did have a few ideas about dealing with them, but it was going to be tricky. After all, even he had some limitations. And considering every one of the teens was under eighteen, and not likely to get any older, it only made things trickier.

Meanwhile, he had to deal with this new vampire that from what Adam had said might be more of a threat than expected. The last thing he needed was to be dragged into a vampiric turf war over who owned the night. He could just imagine how Clark would react to that one.

*******

"Master, we have the information you desired," a cloaked man walked into the dimly lit office where a man sat at a desk reviewing stacks of books piled around a small notebook computer he was using for whatever occupied him.

"Report," the dark-haired man with a thin beard ordered as he turned cold eyes on the man.

"Your daughter is definitely with the detective in his city. She has also been seen in daylight hours, but considering the Bat's own apparent immunities….."

"There remains the possibility that she was turned. Unfortunately, it is the only explanation to date for her survival," he growled. "Still, I can find nothing that explains _his_ miraculous resurrection, or his ability to resist the usual blights on those changed by the vampiric curse. It is as if he….."

"Master?"

"Never mind. Continue to observe, but do not act. Not yet. We dare not underestimate Wayne this time. Considering the level on which he now operates, we must be far more clever than ever if we are to bring him down. And we must. From now on, that is our sole directive until otherwise noted. For we cannot go forward until we are rid of his infernal shadow. I see that now."

"As you will, master," the man bowed, and turned to leave after he was dismissed.

Ra's al Ghul never bothered to take note of his departure. He was still focused on his own studies.

"How," he demanded of the research he was conducting. "How did you manage it? What _miracle_ did you perform this time?"

*******

"We meet at last," a lean, pale man hissed as Batman turned to face the shadow that rose out of the darkness around the cavern's dimly lit interior.

"Dumont," Francis cried, turning to stare at him.

The man smiled coldly as Selina stared at the overly tall, feral creature that simply looked cruel.

The three teens with Francis, especially her brother, cringed before the man's gleaming red gaze, but Talia and Selina stood their ground as Batman turned to pull his cowl down into place.

"Why so bashful, Wayne? I did wonder about the connection of Gotham's favored son to the Bat, but now I wonder how it is you are able to survive the sting of day. Tell me, Wayne," the demon smiled. "And I _might_ just share power with you."

"This is my city, Dumont," he told him as he stepped forward. "You have no place in it."

"Truly? Somehow I guessed this was going to be your reaction. I suppose, then, you'll want this back," he said as he held out Montoya's limp, nearly lifeless body before him.

The unconscious detective looked as if she had been badly beaten, but the more damning marks were those at her throat.

"It took a little effort, but she finally shared all her secrets with me. You chose a poor consort, Wayne. Worse, you should have known to keep your bride closer to you."

"Put her down," he growled, his own eyes glaring with unnatural light as he looked on the woman that had trusted in his protection.

"As you wish," the former manager of the hellish carnival laughed, and flung the woman's limp body out and over the nearest chasm around them.

"Talia," he barked as the woman leapt instantly, grabbing the unconscious woman, and carrying her easily with her as she landed on a far ledge.

"My, my, my. You have quite the setup here," Dumont said, moving closer. "I think I shall enjoy moving in, after I make a few changes, of course. And," he added, eyeing Francis, "Dealing with a few disloyal curs."

"I have a better idea," Batman hissed, and leapt for him.

Dumont, as if waiting for that move, flowed like quicksilver, and ducked under him to reach Francis. "Every bitch of yours I kill limits your own power, Bat. When enough of them are dead," he said, pulling a long, silver knife from under his dark coat. "You'll be back on my level. Then I'll kill you, and claim the mantle the old vampire lord left up for grabs! I'll be a…..!"

"No," Selina hissed, and lunged to grab his arm before he could stab that knife into Francis' heart.

"Interfering bitch," he growled as Batman landed, turned, and lunged toward him even as he backhanded the woman. "No mortal can resist my power!"

"Stop him," Francis shrieked at the gaping teens with her as he turned, ignoring Batman, and went for Selina's throat since that woman had managed to snatch the silver dagger from his hand.

Selina's scream sounded just before Batman could reach her as long, potentially lethal claws slashed at her chest, almost tearing her open. In the same instant, one of the teenage boys risked his former master's fury, and jerked him back and away before he could finish the woman.

"Interfering pest," Dumont howled, and drove the dagger he reclaimed into the boy's chest.

"No," Francis cried as the sandy-haired teen vanished in a burst of gray-green ash that left only yellowing bones to fall and scatter at their feet.

"This ends here and now," Batman hissed, and dropped a hard fist into the carnival owner's jaw. He went flying back hard enough to smash rock behind him, but leapt back to his feet in the same instant.

"Your defenders are dropping like flies, Bat," Dumont laughed as he leapt into the air to again attack. "It'll be your turn soon."

He landed behind Talia, who to his shock, seemed to be waiting on him, as she jumped back across the deep abyss before her with Montoya in her arms. She set the injured detective down near Francis who stood over Selina, and told her and the two teens left, "Protect them," she said, and pulled out her own ninja daggers.

"Stupid cow," Dumont spat. "I'm older than you can imagine. Your silly toys….."

The man hissed, and ducked as the silver tipped shuriken flew past his head, almost taking off an ear.

"Well, well," he gave a sibilant hiss. "Someone is cheating."

"I'm older than I look, too, demon," she spat. "And I've faced your kind before."

"My kind? You mean _our_ kind, don't you, my dear," he mocked, leaping, and flying as he obviously revealed his stratagem was to evade Batman, and attack those around him.

"Did I live twice my years, I'd never be the craven thug that you have become," Talia spat as Batman managed to anticipate one of his leaps, and delivered a punishing kick to his chest that sent him flying backwards again.

He smashed into a computer console, but he landed near the teens in doing so, and rushed at Francis again, dagger still at the ready, and only her brother leaping up to block him spared her their friend's fate. Franklyn managed to evade the blade, though his shirt was sliced across his belly even as his friend joined him, and they tried to hold the vampire master for Batman as he fought to shake them off even as Batman and Talia both closed on him.

"Infernal, treacherous dogs," he howled, and drove a knee into Franklyn's groin to drop him, even as he turned and slashed at the other boy's exposed throat before he could move. The teen staggered back, his throat bleeding black as he stared in horror at the man that had now twice killed him before he fell back, and exploded into gray-green ash that settled around clattering bones falling near Selina who sat up, clutching a hand to her bloody chest as she realized she was really dying.

"Two down," Dumont laughed as he ducked Batman and Talia again. "And when I slay your other queens, I shall claim your power and become lord of Gotham, as well as lord of the night."

Batman stopped, staring coldly at him as he abruptly realized he was playing the wrong game. He was letting Dumont call the plays here, and that was not going to let him win. This was a game he was unfamiliar with, but he guessed from what little Adam had let slip, there were rules.

"So, you want the mantle of the night lord," he demanded.

"Of course I do, you idiot," Dumont spat, and turned to face him directly again only then.

"Then why are fighting women and children," Batman growled. "Why aren't you facing me? Or are you hoping to take that mantle by proving how great a coward you are?"

Batman didn't even blink as he became aware of the sounds of scuttling all around him. Ten. Twenty. No, well over thirty vampires had come with Dumont. He could sense them only now as he calmed down. Calmed his fury. And focused on what was actually going on around him. He had almost succumbed to forgetting the first lesson of control, mastering his temper.

"Talia. Francis. Step back. This is between us. Only us. Unless Dumont intends to keep breaking the rules."

Batman's cold eyes stared at his opponent, but he did not yet move.

"So, do you challenge me? Personally? Formally?"

"Yes," Dumont hissed. "Yes!"

"Then face me, vermin. Face me, and stop picking on children."

Selina stared at him as she forced herself to get up, feeling the blood flowing from her wounds, and knowing she didn't have long left. Only she wasn't sure Bruce could face this monster. He was, she guessed, far more familiar with his powers, and far more experienced in using them. Bruce might be a peerless champion, but he still fought like a man. This Dumont did not. Would not. Bruce, she knew, needed an edge.

"Talia," she rasped, drawing the woman's attention as the vampire glanced her way, and smirked mockingly.

"She's done," he laughed. "Unless you want a last snack of her before she goes on to her own hellish rewards."

"Take me…..to clinic," she groaned, spitting up blood, and praying her gambit would succeed.

"You and me, Wayne," Dumont was being told as Batman approached him with empty hands. "Let's see who owns this city, and the mantle of the night," he growled as he assessed the lanky demon before him.

Even as he walked toward the vampire that would be king, multiple leeches all around them waiting to see who would win this night before making a move, Batman felt a curious shuddering deep in his own body. He frowned, but hid the reaction even as he closed on Dumont.

Who jumped at him unexpectedly, his silver dagger held by the protective handle he had crafted to try to stick it in his chest.

The tip skittered off his armored chest even as a hand flashed to knock the dagger from his hand, and sent the blade clattering across the stone floor of the cavern near where Francis still stood. She picked up the knife again, and held it carefully in both hands. Waiting.

"Now," Batman murmured. "We do this my way," he said so coldly that even Dumont was taken aback just before a hard fist slammed into his jaw.

This time his jaw fractured in three places as he flung across the cavern.

Batman right behind him as he landed with hard boots smashing down into his ribs, cracking bone, and pulping organs. Were he a mortal, Dumont would be dying at that point. He had fed well before he had come here this night, though, and he was healing even as he shoved himself back to his feet, and cursed defiantly as Batman seemed to swell before him, his eyes glittering coldly behind his cowl as he easily batted Dumont's fists aside, and grabbed him by his throat.

"You are nothing but a bully, and a monster. Preying on women and children whose pain and suffering make you feel like a big man. I put men like you in jail every day. You, however, aren't going to jail," he said, and drove another hard fist into his still healing gut as Dumont howled in agony as he sensed the change even as Selina walked back into the cavern, her bloody lips no longer quite so pale, her wounds already knitting as she stood beside Francis and Talia, and shouted out, "Beloved, I am _yours_," she said, wiping her lips clean even as the last of her injuries healed with preternatural speed.

Batman shivered at the words, and suddenly understood what was happening.

His _third_ bride.

His power was swelling within him, and becoming far more than what it had been, which had already been considerable. Not truly enough to defeat Dumont, but now his energies were coursing through him in a way that made him feel almost as powerful as Clark.

He smiled, and hammered Dumont with a grim, merciless efficiency as he broke the healing vampire again and again until the man simply quit trying to get back up.

"I yield. I yield," the challenger finally cried. "Mercy, Wayne. Mercy. I yield!"

"Mercy," Batman snarled, and lifted his battered, still healing body from the ground, and flung it to the closest group of shadowed vampires.

"I'll still win, you know," Dumont tittered as he looked up at him. "I will. Wait and see."

"We all know I want nothing to do with this madness," he told the nearest cold-eyed demon as he ignored Dumont's rambling. "We all know I can't kill you all. Any more than I want to turn Gotham into a slaughterhouse trying. But this….creature…..would have exposed us all, and led hunters right to our resting places," he told them. "I leave you to judge him. He is beneath me," he spat, and turned his back on Dumont.

One of the vampires that was clad in a very snug utility worker's uniform stepped forward, and walked over to where Batman stood with his allies.

"Give it to him," he told Francis when the man eyed the silver dagger she now held.

The vampire took the dagger, and walked over to where Dumont was held by four of their kind by then as he looked at the dark-haired vampire with his dagger. "No! No, you can't do this. We can still rule this city. We can still….."

Dumont died in a burst of yellowish-green ash, speaking of his age. The vampires holding him let his yellowed bones drop from their grasp as they turned to look back at Batman who simply stared at them in turn.

"By might, and by rite, you are now the lord of the vampires in this region, Lord Bat," the utility worker told him and he bowed to him. "So, then, what would you ask of us if you don't wish to be our master, or command an army?"

"You're obviously not mindless ghouls," Batman commented as he stood with the others just behind him. "But you aren't making new vampires, as you are obviously living beneath the notice of others…."

"As you say, we are not all demons," the man who seemed to be spokesman told him. "Most of us are just trying to…..survive. We take what we need, but try not to kill. Or kill those that don't deserve it," he stated bluntly.

"Which is why I have not noticed you, I don't doubt."

The man only nodded.

"So long as you continue as you say you are doing, and do not kill needlessly, or take innocents, I will not act against you. I will, however, suggest an option you might not realize exits."

"Word of your synthetic blood is already spreading, Lord Bat," the vampire told him, still addressing him formally. "It is already bringing more than a few of our kindred here. If it does work, you might find that many of us would prefer not to have to hunt."

Batman nodded. "Then I shall arrange to offer it to those in need. But any that violate this pact of peace will be dealt with, Sherman," he told the man, having read his nametag.

The man smiled wanly. "We don't want trouble either, Lord Bat," he smiled. "Until you can feed us all, though, we will do as we must."

Batman nodded, only beginning to understand his own 'duty' to this new standing among the creatures of the night. "In the meantime, if any do require....sanctuary….."

"We shall handle them, if any come. And don't worry," Sherman added as the rustling of departing vampires filled Batman's sensitive ears. "We shall keep your secrets. After all, we don't want _you_ coming after us next, _Night Lord_."

Then he was gone, and they were alone.

"Selina," he turned toward her as the brunette smiled wanly as she held up a nearly drained packet of the XP-403 blood serum.

"I guessed it was my only chance. And yours," Selina told him. "Based on all that had been going on, and all we've heard, I felt that by giving myself to you as your third bride, I hoped it would…..make a difference."

"More than you know. And likely more than we can guess just yet," he said as even Fate had been unable to find out just why the vampire lords always chose three brides. Always three.

"I suppose we'll find out together, beloved," Talia told him.

"Master," Francis said as she shook her head. "Your friend….."

"I know," Batman said, looking down at Montoya's pale body. "She's dead."

Selina gasped as she looked down at the woman. "I didn't realize….."

"He snapped her neck when he threw her," Talia told her. "I realized that after I caught her."

"Do you think…..? Do you know….?"

Francis was looking at the bones of her friends.

He understood.

"I can't say where they went," he told her honestly as he reached out to put a comforting hand on her shoulder as Francis and her mute brother simply stood staring at their fallen friends' bones. "But I know this much. The fact they died fighting for someone else has to count for something."

"What are we going to do about Montoya," Talia asked pragmatically. "Someone will come asking questions if she just vanishes."

"We will give her a hero's ending," Batman said grimly as he eyed them. "In the meantime, call Tocul. Tell him we have stopped the demon he's probably still hunting," he told Talia grimly as the coven he had unwittingly and unwillingly gathered surrounded him as he glanced over the ancient bones left of the creature he almost torn apart with his bare hands before giving him to the others to judge.

Then he looked at the brunette beside him. "Selina. Thank you. I know what this cost you."

Selina smiled. "Not half so much as what it would have cost us all," she said, and looked to the fallen detective who had tried to warn them in vain. "I'm still not sure if I'm ready to be back to running around at night, though."

He only smiled, but then turned back to the fallen, his smile fading. Even as Batman stood staring at the bones, though, he realized something in his own body had yet to fully settle. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the unease, and then tore his cape away even as he felt his reinforced costume shred as large, webbed wings flared out behind him. Wings like those a large bat. Only with dark feathers.

"Wow," Francis gasped, the only one to speak as those large, powerful wings spread out behind him. "We didn't get _those_!"

"Indeed," Batman murmured, glancing over his own shoulders at the large wings now sprouting and spreading out from his back. He also felt a sense of the night he had not known even after his first transformation. He could sense others around him. Every insect. Every rat and mouse. The mites in and around them. He could still sense every one of the forty-seven vampires, male and female, that had filled the cavern, too. He could sense their paths, and if he focused, could now likely track them to their own lairs.

It was….humbling.

Or it was to him.

He realized more than ever the damage Dumont could have done with such power. Such….awareness. Fortunately, that threat was ended.

Talia turned from the computer where she had been calling her contacts as she nodded, telling him, "I told the hunters' people the vampire was gone. Tocul will be informed, and we likely won't see him again unless something else leads him here."

Batman only nodded.

"What about Montoya," Selina asked quietly.

"I have an idea," he said grimly. "As I said, she deserves a hero's ending."

*******

"What is it," Batman asked as he appeared to face Thomas Clarke at Ivy's greenhouse again the next night.

"I suppose you heard about Detective Montoya," he asked.

"Yes," he nodded as Ivy stood nearby, saying nothing.

Earlier that day, in the early morning hours, Detective Montoya radioed in reporting she was in pursuit of a lawbreaker who had just shot up an area neighborhood, and was apparently on a drug-fueled rampage. She was in pursuit of the suspect when the suspect turned and aimed his car at the pursuing detective. Their cars crashed, and both exploded. Her, and the suspect, were burned to death in their mangled cars. All that was left was the perp's bones, and what little remained of Montoya's charred body that had been badly damaged in the crash.

In fact, he and Talia had been in those cars to ensure everyone saw the initial chase, and Talia had used her own skills to mask her voice as the detectives when she called in the pursuit.

Once out of sight of anyone close enough to notice their gambit, they settled the bodies, or bones in place, and rammed the cars into one another, leaving them a mangled heap of burning metal to mask the two apparent deaths that covered up the truth that would have stunned the city had they learned it.

"I am sorry to hear about the detective. She was a good cop."

"I happen to know she was likely helping you. Certain….abnormalities of late suggested….."

"What is on your mind, commissioner," he asked curtly as his cape hung over his back, hiding his folded wings as he tasted the man's nervousness.

"Was she involved in one of your investigations? Do I need to worry about….anything else?"

"No," was all Batman told him.

Thomas sighed. "I'm not sure if that's a relief or not. Still, I do want to thank you for….my daughter."

Batman only nodded.

"You know, you could probably do a lot more good if you just…..joined the Force."

Batman's chortle was as grim as any he had ever voiced.

"Okay, I deserved that. But I hope you understand, I am not going to waver on my stance on vigilantes. I'm not Gordon, and….."

Thomas Clarke looked back to find himself talking to empty space. The grimly clad detective had vanished.

"Damnation, I hate that!"

Ivy chortled. "Not many people like it." she told him.

Thomas just glared at her, and stalked out of the nursery as she waited. Even as the commissioner drove away, she addressed the shadows around her.

"So? Selina joined us after all?"

"It was her choice."

"I thought she favored living out her natural lifespan?"

"It was an impulsive decision on her part."

"So I've heard. As I have heard Gotham's vampire population seems to be growing of late."

"So far they're keeping in line. Worried?"

"Only about you, Bruce," she called him as she walked over to gently touch his cape. "I know how you drive yourself. And we both know that with all these vampires coming, others will follow. From _both_ sides of the chasm."

"I know that, too. So if you'll excuse me, I do need to get back."

"Of course. Call if you need anything. I'm here to help, too."

"I know, Ivy. And I appreciate that," he nodded before his wings spread out over his modified cape designed to retract at such times, and she only smiled as he took to the air with the grace of a born flier.

*******

Deep underground Arkham. Deep in shadows among reeking corridors hidden from most beneath the asylum, and the city, something stirred.

Pale, yellow eyes flared open, and red, bruised lips parted to reveal the gleaming white of sharp fangs. Pale skin made paler by the lack of blood flowing beneath parchment like flesh shuddered like wispy parchment fluttering in the breeze.

Only there was no breeze.

Only withering muscles filled with fresh vitality relearning their role as unholy will met desiccated flesh, and forced it to respond.

Glittering eyes finally focused, and a low, raspy chortle began to issue from the split lips.

"Now _this_ is what I call a punchline," a tittering voice exclaimed as a darker than normal shadow rose to cast an eerie silhouette across the other shadows around the sewer he occupied.

The sounds and movement sent rats scurrying, but the glassy-eyed demon did not notice, or care. He moved slowly, cautiously, his mind uncannily aware that he was not truly safe. Not yet. Because he was well aware that out there in the night was another shadow. One that would cheerfully put an end to his new life if he had but the slightest inkling that he still existed. That he had become far more than dear Batsy ever could have dreamed.

Better, the madman resurrected realized, to wait and plan. To bide his time, and gather his forces. Then. Then he would move. And this time…..he would win!

*******

Adam appeared on the rooftop as if materializing from thin air as Batman surveyed the city. It was, he knew, entirely possible. Atypically, he was dressed in a finely tailore white suit. Even his tie was a startlingly, unblemished white.

"Clever Bat. Very, very clever. You still hide the truth of your potential blight in the shadow you present to the world on a daily….or rather nightly basis."

"What you call a blight, I choose to consider just one more tool," Batman told him quietly, feeling the new vibrancy singing in his blood and bones, and urging him to unleash his new powers on an unsuspecting world.

He didn't so much as blink as he surveyed his city, ignoring the shadow of the finely dressed man beside him.

"Enjoy the opera," he asked the reborn demon. "I hear Velicara plays a very good Faust."

"You are quite the clever man. And you are closer than ever to _true_ immortality. I especially enjoyed the way you handled that poser Dumont, who about now is likely learning all about the delights of hell firsthand."

"Curious how you seem to be so interested in how I am doing," Batman drawled leadingly.

Adam chuckled softly. "As I once told you. Eternity can be boring. You're amusing, Bat. And you're quite diverting. And if you ever actually achieve true immortality, then I might just consider you a real challenge, and face you once more. As a peer. If you don't yet slide into hell yourself."

"You first," Batman growled, looking back out over the city.

Adam chortled again. "Been there, done that," he sighed. "Besides, hell is not what you mortals think. You may yet learn that for yourself, though. Oh, and Velicara is superb. I sent _Bruce_ and a date of his choice tickets. Consider it…..a gesture of good will."

Batman fought an involuntary shudder of his own as the demon vanished, and left him standing alone again.

For just the briefest of moments.

The two shadows moving behind him were clad in full body unitards that hid even their faces. One was male, one was obviously female.

"Tonight, you watch. Only that," he told his new apprentices. "You are not yet ready to face anyone."

"But they can't hurt…."

"There is always someone stronger, better, or more dangerous than you realize out there," Batman cut her off. "Remember that if you don't remember anything else. What you saw just now? He is as far beyond you as Dumont was when you were still normal humans. And this is much more out there. Trust me. If you're going to face them, you have to be ready. You have to train. You have to learn. So tonight…you watch."

"Yes, master," the female murmured, and he glanced back at her, but said nothing.

Whatever he might have been about to say was lost as an echoing scream rose from the streets far below them. Batman turned and flung himself downward without hesitation, and paid no attention to the two shadows that followed in his wake.

_To Be Continued in 'Darkest Before Dawn'....._


End file.
